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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



LIFE'S BYWAYS AND 
WAYSIDES 




By J. R. MILLER, D.D. 

AUTHOR OF WEEK-DAY RELIGION, 
IN HIS STEPS, ETC. 



** The highways were unoccupied, 
And the travellers ivalked through byways" 

BOOK OF JUDGES 

" Some seeds fell by the wayside''' 

st. Matthew's gospel 



PHILADELPHIA 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 
AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK 

I8 95 




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Copyright, 1895, 

BY THE 

Trustees of the Presbyterian Board of Publication 
and Sabbath-School Work. 



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'TpHESE chapters are at the best only frag- 
■*■ ments of teaching. They have no close 
connection save as they all touch life at some 
point, and have as their aim the giving of im- 
pulse, cheer, encouragement, and hope. The 
first thing in true Christian living is to get ac- 
quainted with the Lord Jesus Christ, and to 
enter into close relations of love, faith, and obe- 
dience with him. Possibly there may be some 
words in these pages which will give to an 
earnest reader fresh glimpses of Christ and 
make a little plainer the way of duty and the 
possibilities of Christian living. To help even 
one soul out of the shadows into the light, 
out of sorrow into joy, out of weakness into 
strength, out of doubt into faith, will make 
this little book worth while. 

J. R. M. 

Philadelphia 



" A broken song — it had dropped apart 
Just as it left the singer's heart, 
And was never whispered upon the air, 
Only breathed into the vague * Somewhere.' 

A broken prayer — only half said 
By a tired child at his trundle-bed j 
While asking Jesus his soul to keep, 
With parted lips, he fell fast asleep. 



A broken life — hardly half told 
When it dropped the burden it could not hold. 
Of these lives, and songs, and prayers half done, 
God gathers the fragments, every one." 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Life's Byways and Waysides ... 7 

II. Unto His Nest Again 21 

III. The Silent Christ 35 

IV. Tempted Like as We are .... 48 
V. The Greatest Love 61 

VI. Spices for Christ's Grave .... 74 

VII. The Everlasting Arms 86 

VIII. The Disciple Jesus Loved .... 98 

IX. Great in God's Sight 109 

X. Possibilities of Friendship . . . .122 

XI. Praying for Our Friends . . . .135 

XII. Transforming Power of Prayer . 149 

XIII. Serving Our Generation . . . .162 

XIV. The Ministry of Suffering . . . 177 
XV. Refuge from Strife of Tongues . 189 

XVI. Faithfulness 202 

XVII. The Law of Use and Disuse . . . 214 

XVIII. Prayer for Divine Searching . . 226 

XIX. Remembering Christ's Words . . 237 

XX. The Manliness of Jesus 248 

XXI. The Living Christ 262 

XXII. Friendships in Heaven 272 

XXIII. The Duty of Forgetting .... 284 

XXIV. Night and Jesus Absent 298 

XXV. Numbering Our Days 310 

5 



LIFE'S 

BYWAYS AND 
WAYSIDES 

CHAPTER I. 

Life's Byways and Waysides. 

" There lives and sings a little lonely brook 
Up in a wild where few men come to look, — 
Living and singing in the dreary pines, 
Yet creeping on to where the daylight shines. 

Pure from the heavens, in mountain chalice caught, 
It drinks the rain, as drinks the soul her thought j 
And down dim hollows where it winds along 
Pours its life burden of unlistened song." 

Many of the best things of life are found in the 
byways. The map-makers show us the great 
thoroughfares, but they pay no heed to the coun- 
try roads and the paths that run through the 
meadows, forests, and gardens, and climb the 
mountain sides. Yet many of the loveliest things 
in nature are found along these byways. Much 
of the world's beauty hides in out-of-the-way 

7 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

nooks, where human feet rarely go. Some of 
the sweetest flowers on the earth grow on beet- 
ling crags, or in the crevices of cold, gray rocks, 
where one would scarcely expect to find any 
trace of life. Nature does not array herself in 
loveliness merely to be seen of men, for in the 
depths of great forests and in inaccessible valleys 
among lofty mountains, where no human eye has 
ever looked upon them, the flowers are as rich 
in their beauty as in the gardens where throngs 
are ever passing and admiring. 

" White lilies and fragrant, behold 
How coyly they nestle and fold 
Their petals round hearts of deep gold, 

Wearing never a stain of the sod, — 
And content on the lake's placid breast 
With shadows to float and to rest, 
Giving freely their sweetest and best, 

To forests primeval, untrod, — 
Enriching the water and air, 
And abiding in peace, unaware 
That nothing on earth is more fair 

Than white lilies, created by God !" 

There are byways also in life. There are a 
few distinguished people whom everybody seeks 
to know and whose praises are borne on every 
breeze. But, meanwhile, in the list of those 
unknown to fame are countless lives just as 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

noble, as brave, as holy, as unselfish, as useful, as 
many of those who receive the world's commen- 
dation. The real worth of men's and women's 
lives is not to be rated by the measure of their 
earthly fame. Popularity itself is ofttimes but 
the whim of a day, to be replaced to-morrow by 
forgetfulness and neglect, perhaps by execration. 
There is a picture by Tintoretto, which shows 
Jesus on his cross. Then, as the observer looks 
closely, he sees in the background an ass feeding 
on withered palm leaves, the palms which had 
been waved on Palm Sunday. This feature of 
the picture is intended to recall the acclaim of 
the triumphal entry in contrast with the demand 
of the people, five days later, for the crucifixion 
of Jesus. 

Fame is often but the glitter of an hour. 
Then, even when it is born of love, and is the 
just meed of true worth, it carries in it no dis- 
paragement of other lives which do not receive 
human praise. Many of the unpraised have as 
high encomium with God as those whom men 
applaud. Many of earth's unsung heroes are as 
real heroes in the sight of angels as those for 
whom monuments are set up in public squares and 
whose deeds are commemorated in oration and 
song. Many of the world's nameless saints have 
as high honor in heaven as those whose devotion, 

9 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

service, and sacrifice are enshrined in immortal 
memory in the church. If all the life of any 
day could be seen, it would appear that in the 
quiet byways, in lowly homes, and among the 
poor, there are thousands of God's children 
who are living nobly, beautifully, self-sacri- 
ficingly, making whole neighborhoods purer, 
sweeter, yet hearing not one word of human 
praise. They stay near the heart of Christ. 
They come every morning from his presence, 
their very garments smelling of myrrh, aloes, 
and cassia, out of the ivory palaces. They go 
through their humble daily rounds in the spirit 
of love. They pour blessings on the common 
paths, wherever they move, making the world a 
little sweeter, happier, and better for their stay- 
ing in it. We do not know how much of 

" The healing of the world 
Is in its nameless saints." 

There are byways of usefulness. There are 
in every community a few people who are noted 
for their large charities, for their valuable ser- 
vices, or for their personal helpfulness. They 
are like the shadow of a great rock in a weary 
land to the troubled and distressed who turn 
to them. They are comforters in every home 
of sorrow. Their influence is a benediction 

10 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

over a wide neighborhood. They have a share 
in every good work. 

But there are many others who, in quiet ways, 
and without appreciation, give out blessings 
scarcely less rich and helpful. The circle in 
which they move is narrower. The things 
they do seem smaller. Yet they minister con- 
tinually in Christ's name and seek not to be 
ministered unto. They shine as quiet lights, 
brightening a little space about them. 

Some of the divinest things done on this earth 
are done by the poor for others who are poor. 
They make sacrifices and spend their strength 
in rendering personal assistance in times of 
trouble. The other day, at the house of a sick 
woman, another woman was met, who had 
walked three miles, carrying one child in her 
arms, with another tugging at her skirts, for the 
purpose of putting her neighbor's house in order, 
preparing some food, and doing whatever she 
could for the comfort of the patient. The rich 
give their money, but the poor give themselves. 
Nothing is holier than such ministry, and yet it 
gets no earthly praise. 

Mary Lyon used to say to her pupils on grad- 
uation day, " My dear girls, when you choose 
your fields of labor, go where nobody else is 
willing to go." There are always plenty of 

ii 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

workers for conspicuous places. There is no 
trouble in finding pastors for great city churches 
and men for the positions which pay large sala- 
ries. There are many kinds of service for which 
there are scores of candidates. After having 
passed through the experience of considering the 
claims and qualifications of the applicants for 
one of these conspicuous and attractive places, 
one would never think that laborers are few. 
There seem to be a great many people who 
reverse the counsel — that they go where nobody 
else is willing to go — and try to get their field of 
labor where everybody else would like to go. 

But, meanwhile, what about the byways of 
service and usefulness ? There is always room 
enough here for all who will consecrate them- 
selves to such work for the Master, and there is 
a field here also for the largest measure of use- 
fulness. There is no throng at the gate, pressing 
applications, urging brilliant gifts, and bringing 
piles of endorsements and commendations, com- 
peting for the privilege of doing the Master's 
work in these obscure and unsalaried places. 
There are not many who are really seeking to 
go where nobody else is willing to go. Here, 
indeed, it is found that the Master's lament — 
the harvest is plenteous and the laborers are few 
— is still to be made. 

12 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

Yet, in all the world there are no richer fields 
for Christ's service than are found in these by- 
ways. No one can do more wisely than to 
choose a place and a work which no other one 
desires to take. Years ago there lived and 
wrought in Italy a great artist in mosaics. With 
bits of glass and stone he could produce the 
most striking works of art, works which brought 
a great price. In his shop there was a boy whose 
business it was to keep the place in order. One 
day he came to his master and asked that he 
might have for his own the bits of broken glass 
which were thrown upon the floor. The boy's 
request was granted. " The bits are good for 
nothing," said the master ; " do as you please 
with them." Day after day the child might 
have been seen examining the pieces, throwing 
some away, and laying others carefully aside. 

One day the master came upon a beautiful 
work of art in an unused storeroom. The poor 
boy, with an artist's soul, had used the rejected 
fragments, and had patiently and lovingly fash- 
ioned them into this — a real masterpiece. So 
may those do who choose to serve in life's by- 
ways, doing the things of love which no others 
care to do. These are Christliest ministries. 
When the Master comes, it will be seen that 
those who have wrought in these lowly ways 

13 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

have been preparing for themselves a record 
of blessing whose glory shall be eternal. 

There is another class of Christian service 
which may be called wayside ministry. Much 
of the best work of life is of this order. We 
do not plan to do it. We go out to do other 
things, and on our way this comes to our hand 
and we do it, and it proves full of helpfulness 
and blessing. 

Many of the most beautiful deeds of love in 
the life of Jesus were wayside ministries. One 
day he was going with a troubled father to heal 
his dying child. As he passed through the 
crowds there was a timid touch on the hem of 
his garment. There was a heart's cry in the 
touch, a poor woman's pleading for healing. 
Instantly Jesus stopped, not minding the appeal- 
ing look in the eyes of the anxious father, and 
patiently and sweetly ministered to the need of 
the sufferer who had crept up timidly behind 
him. The healing of this woman who touched 
the hem of his garment is one of the most in- 
teresting of all the miracles of Jesus, and yet it 
was a piece of wayside ministry, which came, 
as it were, by accident, without purpose, into 
his life, and was wrought as he hurried on an- 
other errand. 

The talk with Nicodemus seems also to have 

14 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

been a bit of wayside ministry. It does not 
appear to have been planned for as part of the 
day's work. We may suppose that one evening 
the Master came to the house of a friend, weary 
from the day's toils and strifes. He was pre- 
paring for a quiet, restful evening when a visitor 
was announced. Nicodemus, the ruler, came 
in and desired to talk awhile with the Rabbi. 
Then followed that wonderful conversation 
which has proved such a blessing all the years 
since, and which was but a fragment of unstudied 
wayside talk. 

Another time the Master was very weary after 
a long journey in the heat, and sat down on an 
old well-curb to rest, while his disciples went 
to a neighboring village to buy food, for he was 
hungry as well as tired. He had just settled 
down for a quiet time of rest, when there came 
a woman to the well to draw water. Her sore 
need appealed to his quick sympathy, and he 
roused himself to help her. The conversation 
which took place — one of the very gems of the 
gospel — was also an hour's wayside talk. 

These incidents illustrate and confirm the state- 
ment that much of the most valuable service in 
the life of Jesus was wayside ministry. As he 
went here and there on his purposed errands 
these opportunities for helpfulness were con- 

15 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

tinually breaking in upon him, and he never 
thrust one of them from him. There was not 
a day, however full, whose interstices were not 
crowded with common kindnesses to those he 
met on the way, — pieces of beautiful wayside 
work. Sometimes he was working miracles, 
sometimes he was preaching, but always, 
wherever he went, he was serving in a thousand 
gentle ways. 

There is a legend that, when Jesus arose from 
his grave and walked out of Joseph's garden, 
white lilies blossomed in his footsteps, so that 
wherever he went bloom and beauty sprung up. 
The legend faintly illustrates what was true of 
him all his days on earth. Blessings followed 
in his footsteps. The sick were healed, dis- 
couraged ones were cheered, sorrowing ones 
were comforted, and the weary received inspira- 
tion and strength from his words. 

In our degree — lesser because of the littleness 
of our lives — all of us may continually perform 
a wayside ministry as we go along on our pur- 
posed errands for God. We have our allotted 
tasks for the day, and these are enough to fill 
our hands. But this need not make machines 
of us. We have human hearts, and while we 
are busy, with not a moment to lose, our sym- 
pathy and love may be flowing out to all whom 

16 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

• 

we meet or touch. We may be kind to our 
fellows who are working beside us. We may 
be thoughtful in speech. Our face may carry 
in it a benediction for every one who passes. 
Our merest hand-shake and cheerful " Good- 
morning" may be full of God's hearty love, 
and may send those whom we salute to a 
brighter, braver, happier day. 

" Such a heart I'd bear in my bosom, 

That threading the crowded street, 
My face should shed joy unlooked for 

On every poor soul I meet; 
And such wisdom should crown my forehead, 

That, coming where counsels stand, 
I should carry the thoughts of justice, 

And stablish the weal of the land." 

Such wayside kindnesses will never hinder us 
in our day's task-work. Jesus bade his disciples 
salute no man by the way as they passed abroad 
on his errands. That was because in Oriental 
lands it took a long while to make such a salu- 
tation, and time spent in such a senseless way 
was wasted, when human lives were waiting for 
the coming of the messenger and the word of 
mercy he bore. But we can give out our bless- 
ings of love as we go by, without wasting time 
or dallying on our way. We need not even 
slacken our pace nor lose a moment. 
b 17 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

Then, even if, sometimes, services of love do 
break into our busy days and do hinder us some- 
what, may it not be that these are fragments of 
God's will, bits of God's work, sent for us to 
do, even at the cost of interrupting our own 
plans, breaking into our own programme ? 
This is the only way the Master can get some 
of us to do any work of his, for our hearts and 
hands are so full of our own things that we have 
no time for tasks for him. We need never fear 
that our hands will be any less full at the end 
because we have slackened our pace a little, now 
and then, to do some slight wayside service for 
Christ. 

There is a story of one who began to run in 
a race and ran well, — was foremost of all. But 
by and by he stopped to lift up a fallen child 
and place it out of danger, thus losing something 
of what he had gained. Farther on, a fainting 
comrade appealed to his sympathy, and he 
turned aside to help him to rise. Again he stayed 
his steps for a little to guide a feeble woman 
to safety. Whenever duty called or sorrow 
appealed, he left his chosen path to give aid or 
comfort. Thus he fell behind, and another won 
the prize which might have been his. He stood 
unheeded, uncrowned, with empty hands, at the 
end. But who will say that in heaven's sight 

18 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

he was not the real winner of the race ? He 
had lost the prize, but he had brightened all the 
course with gentle ministries of love. Many 
of what to men seem failures will prove in the 
great revealing to have been divinest successes. 
To be true and to strive truly is to succeed, 
though nothing seem to come of it. Kate 
Tucker Goode writes, — 

He cast his net at morn where fishers toiled, — 

At eve he drew it empty to the shore $ 
He took the diver's plunge into the sea, 

But thence within his hand no pearl he bore. 

He ran a race, but never reached his goal j 
He sped an arrow, but he missed his aim j 

And slept at last beneath a simple stone, 

With no achievements carved about his name. 

Men called it failure ; but for my own part 
I dare not use that word, for what if heaven 

Shall question, ere its judgment shall be read, 

Not " Hast thou won ?" but only " Hast thou striven ?" 

It may be that those who live a life of love 
in this world, while they also do well their part 
in the business of the passing days, will some- 
times seem losers. They have not gotten on so 
well in the world as their competitors. Yet 
their loss is truest gain. It is not worth while 
to live at all, if love be left out. The priest and 

19 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

the Levite got clear of some delay, some trouble, 
and some cost by passing on when they saw the 
wounded man by the wayside ; but who will 
say that the good Samaritan did not make more 
of his opportunity that day than they did ? The 
priest and the Levite neglected the wayside 
work for humanity which was offered to them, 
sparing themselves trouble but missing the re- 
ward of faithfulness. The good Samaritan 
stopped in his journey to do love's service, 
doing it well, making personal sacrifice to do it, 
but he was never sorry for it, nor the poorer 
for what it cost him. 

Life's byways and waysides are full of 
opportunities for noble service. He is wise 
who is not afraid to leave the beaten path and 
the purposed task to do God's work where it 
waits. 



20 



CHAPTER II. 
Unto His Nest Again. 

If I can stop one heart from breaking, 

I shall not live in vain ; 
If I can ease one life the aching, 

Or cool one pain ; 
Or help one fainting robin 

Unto his nest again, 

I shall not live in vain. 

Emily Dickinson. 

One day, President Lincoln and a friend were 
walking together in a field, when they found a 
little bird fluttering in the grass. It had fallen 
out of its nest in the bushes, and could not get 
back again. The great, gentle-hearted man 
stopped in his walk, stooped down, picked up 
the little thing, and put it back into its place. 
If it was a noble deed for a great man to lift a 
fluttering bird back into its place ; if even help- 
ing one fainting robin unto its nest again redeems 
a life from uselessness, what work of high honor 
is it to help back a fainting human soul into its 
nest of faith and love in the bosom of Christ ! 
That is the work Christ is doing continually. 

21 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

That is what he wants us to do in his name 
when we find a soul that has fallen out of the 
nest of trust and peace. 

John the Baptist had lost the perfectness of 
his confidence. This seems very strange to us. 
We remember his noble words, as he foretold 
the Messiah, then as he pointed him out to his 
disciples and spoke of his glory. We remem- 
ber his sublime courage when he faced the 
terrible Herod and reproved him for his sin. 
Is it possible that a shadow of doubt ever came 
over his sky ? Yet listen to the question which 
his disciples are sent to ask Jesus: "Art thou 
he that should come ? or do we look for 
another ?" Why should such heroic faith as 
we see in John by the Jordan be changed to 
doubt and fear a little later ? 

We must remember John's circumstances. 
For a few months, multitudes flocked to hear 
him preach, and then the throngs melted away. 
His mission was only to prepare the way for 
Christ, and when Christ came John paled, as 
the morning star pales before the sunrise. It is 
hard to be forgotten by those who a little while 
ago sang one's praises. Then, John was now 
in prison in one of the gloomiest castles ever 
built, in one of the most desolate places of the 
earth. To any man such a prison must have 

22 



Unto His Nest Again 

had its dreadful horrors, but to John this im- 
prisonment must have been an unspeakable bit- 
terness. He had lived, a child of nature, in the 
freedom of the mountains and the deserts, 
breathing the air of heaven and gazing up by 
night at the stars. Worse than death to this 
untamed, passionate spirit was the prison of 
Machaerus. No wonder that, shut up in its 
desolate dungeon, this great eagle soul began to 
lose its majestic courage. 

Meanwhile, to his prison there came frag- 
mentary reports of the ministry of Jesus. He 
was very popular. Throngs followed him. 
He wrought many miracles. But why was his 
forerunner left unhelped, undelivered, in this 
dark dungeon ? He had been faithful to Jesus ; 
why did not Jesus come and open these prison- 
doors for him ? Among so many mighty works, 
could not one be wrought to release him ? Was 
it just, was it right, that he should be neglected 
here, in the darkness and the wretchedness, 
while Jesus was in the midst of great honor ? 
Perhaps such questions arose in the mind of 
John, as he lay in his dungeon and heard of the 
works of Jesus. Is it any wonder that " the 
eye of the caged eagle began to film" ? 

There are true Christians in every age who 
have their times of spiritual discouragement. 

2 3 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

No doubt a child of God should always rejoice. 
Yet some of the holiest saints who ever lived 
have had experiences of disheartenment. What 
earnest soul is there that never finds in the 
passionate supplication and longing of the forty- 
second psalm its own liturgy of longing ? 

There are many causes which may produce 
spiritual depression. Some people have a gloomy 
temperament. They live in the valleys, and 
the valleys do not catch the morning sunshine 
until long after the mountain tops have been 
gilded. Thus Thomas was the last of the dis- 
ciples to get the joy of the resurrection. This 
same disposition keeps many good Christian 
people much of the time in the shadows. 
Sometimes sickness is the cause of despondent 
feelings. Ofttimes persons whose faith is ordi- 
narily bright and clear are cast into gloom when 
there is no spiritual reason whatever, solely by 
their physical condition. Sore trials sometimes 
cause the clouding of faith. Peter wrote : 
" Ye are in heaviness through manifold trials." 
Sometimes, in the sharpness and in the continu- 
ance of affliction, the heart grows weary and is 
thrown out of its nest of peace. Or there may 
be mental perplexities caused by questionings 
that receive no answer. 

These are a few of the causes which tend to 

24 



Unto His Nest Again 

produce spiritual disheartenment, and lead good 
people to ask whether or not Jesus is the 
Saviour and the Friend they had supposed him 
to be. We all know that we do not need to 
have these doubts and fears, that we should 
never be shaken for a moment out of our nest 
of confidence and peace. The word of God 
is : " Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace 
whose mind is stayed on thee." Amid all trials, 
gloom, sorrows, mysteries, questionings, there 
is one blessed truth on which we may rest. 
Browning puts it in one great, noble sentence : 

lt God, thou art love; I build my faith on thee." 

Yet we are all human, and weak because human. 
The strongest of us may be swept away for a 
time from our refuge, or at least may lose the 
full joy of our Christian hope. 

What should we do in such experiences ? 
We have the answer in the example of John. 
He sent two of his disciples to Jesus to ask him 
plainly, " Art thou he that should come, or do 
we look for another ?" Instead of nursing his 
questionings, in the gloom of his dungeon, he 
laid them at once before Christ. That is what 
we should do with all our fears and perplexities 
— take them to Christ. No other can answer 
them so well as he can. No other will answer 

2 5 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

them so gladly, so wisely, so lovingly. He was 
not impatient with John when he sent to ask his 
question. Good men sometimes are impatient 
with any who have doubts, or who are swept 
away from their moorings. But Jesus never was. 
With unbelief he had no sympathy. He not 
only marveled at men's unbelief; it angered him. 
But with doubt, or sincere questioning, he had 
infinite patience, and took the greatest pains to 
help the inquirer into the full, clear light. 

Mark well the distinction between doubt and 
unbelief. " Doubt is can't believe," says a re- 
cent writer ; " unbelief is won't believe. Doubt 
is honesty ; unbelief is obstinacy. Doubt is 
looking for light ; unbelief is content with the 
darkness." Jesus severely reproved unbelief; 
but when any one came to him with question- 
ings, seeking light, desiring to find the truth, he 
dealt with him with wondrous gentleness. He 
sat down and talked with Nicodemus. He 
showed Thomas the wounds in his hands and 
feet. He let the Baptist know the beautiful 
work he was doing. He is the same to-day. If 
we have questionings or fears, we may be sure 
of most patient, gentle dealing if we bring them 
to him. He will never chide for our dullness 
and slowness in understanding ; he will teach us 
what we want to know. One writes : 

26 



Unto His Nest Again 

The years 
Roll back, and through a mist of tears 
I see a child turn from her play 
And seek with eager feet the way 
That led her to her father's knee. 

" If God is good and kind," said she, 
" Why did he let my roses diei" 
A moment's pause, a smile, a sigh, 
And then, " I do not know, my dear ; 
Some questions are not answered here." 

" But is it wrong to ask ?" " Not so, 
My child. That we should seek to know 
Proves right to know, beyond a doubt ; 
And so some day we shall find out 
Why roses die." 

And then I wait, 
Sure of my answer soon or late j 
Secure that love doth hold for me 
The key of life's great mystery ; 
And, oh ! so glad to leave it there ! 
Though my dead roses were so fair. 

Our Lord's own word is comforting: "What 
I do thou knowest not now ; but thou shalt 
know hereafter." It is faith we want. Faith 
is believing when we cannot see. Wait a little 
longer and all the sad mystery shall be cleared 
away. A tourist tells of sailing out of the 
muddy waters of Lake Huron into the crystal 

27 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

waters of Lake Superior. When night came 
on, the vessel was in Lake Huron and his eye 
could not penetrate beneath the surface. Rising 
in the morning, he came on deck, and looking 
over the prow, he was surprised to find how 
clear the water was through which the vessel 
was moving. He could see the great jagged 
rocks, and it seemed as if the keel would strike 
upon them. In reality, however, they were 
fifty or sixty feet below the surface. The water 
was so clear that the depth appeared to be only 
a few feet. 

We are moving now through dark, cloudy 
waters. Mysteries impenetrable surround us. 
We cannot understand the things that befall us. 
We cannot comprehend the deep things of God, 
of Christ, of the Bible, and of Providence. 
But as we move on we shall pass at length out 
of the obscurities and mysteries into the clear, 
crystal knowledge of heaven. It is said in 
Revelation that there shall be no more sea in 
heaven. To the ancients the sea was the em- 
blem of mystery. To say there shall be no sea 
in heaven means that there shall be no mystery 
there. All that here is dark and strange shall 
there be made clear. 

The comfort Christ gives to those who come 
to him with their doubts and fears may not be 



Unto His Nest Again 

the removal of the things that cause the dark- 
ness. John was not released from prison after 
he had sent his disciples to Jesus. Jesus did 
not go out to the desert and tear down the 
frowning walls that shut his friend away in the 
gloom. John was left there, and before a great 
while died as a martyr. But when the messen- 
gers returned and told their master what they 
had seen and what Jesus had said to them, we 
may be sure John's doubts fled away and as- 
surance of peace came again into his heart. 

Nor will Jesus now always remove the things 
that discourage us. But he will give us grace to 
believe in his love even when we cannot see, and 
to wait in faith for the fuller, clearer revealing. 
Indeed, sometimes the sorrows and losses that 
cause us so much darkness and doubt are caused 
by the removing of obstacles in the way of our 
wider vision. There were some lilac bushes 
at the window of a farmer's house. They kept 
out the sunshine and air, and they obstructed the 
view so that the mountains could not be seen. 
One day the farmer's axe was heard, and bush 
after bush was cut away. " Only a little more 
cutting," he said, " and we shall get it." Then 
the mountains could be seen from the window. 
It is ofttimes thus with our earthly joys. They 
are very sweet, but they hide our view of the 

2 9 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

Delectable Mountains. Money is lost. Loved 
ones are taken from us. Earthly honors are cut 
off. Luxuries are swept away. Remorselessly 
the axe cuts into our hedgerows of beauty and 
we cry out in alarm. But when the cutting is 
done we see more clearly; we have wider views; 
we behold lovely things we had never seen be- 
fore. One says, " I never knew the meaning 
of that precious text till my trouble came." 
Another says, " I never loved God so much as 
since he took my baby home." Another says, 
" I never knew what it was to trust God and 
rest in his love, until my money was taken away." 
Thus our very trials, which at the time darken 
the sky for us, help, ofttimes, to lead us to firmer 
faith and securer trust. 

It is interesting to notice the way in which 
Jesus answered John's doubts. While the mes- 
sengers were present, waiting for the answer, 
Jesus cured many persons of diseases and plagues, 
and of evil spirits, and on many blind he be- 
stowed sight. Then he said : " Go your way, 
and tell John what things ye have seen and heard ; 
the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the 
lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are 
raised up, the poor have good tidings preached 
to them." John had had wrong views of Christ's 
mission. Jesus shows him that the true glory 

3° 



Unto His Nest Again 

of his Messiahship was in its tenderness and 
grace, its gentle deeds, its blessings of healing 
and comfort, its thoughtfulness for the poor. 

What was it in these works that proved 
Christ's Messiahship ? Was it the fact that 
they were supernatural ? No ; it was primarily 
the fact that they were deeds of love. We may 
not undervalue the supernatural in the ministry 
of Christ, as evidence of his divine mission. 
The God shines out in all his life. Yet he 
never wrought a miracle merely for display, or 
to prove his divinity. The real glory of Christ 
was in the divine love that wrought in and 
through all his miracles as well as in his most 
common acts. The glory of Christ is seen 
to-day wherever Christianity has gone. Look 
at the works of mercy which are wrought in 
Christ's name. Go among the hospitals, into 
asylums for the blind, refuges for orphans, and 
homes for the aged and for the poor. Follow the 
Christian workers of any true Christian church 
in their rounds of blessed ministry among the 
sick, the troubled, the sorrowing, and in their 
visits to the poor, the outcast, and the prisoner. 
Men say miracles ceased with the apostles. 
Well, grant it ; but " the greater works" which 
Christ said his followers should do — greater than 
he had done — have never ceased. 

3 1 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

The power of Christ is working in his church 
to-day as really as ever it did. It is hampered 
and hindered, and ofttimes balked of its loving 
purpose, by the imperfection of the lives of 
those who represent Christ ; the grace of Christ 
loses much of its sweetness and its power in its 
transmission through the poor human lives which 
are the lines of communication between God and 
the world. Yet with all that is imperfect in the 
church, God's glory is flowing everywhere, and 
the world is being blessed. 

There is a practical lesson which we should 
not fail to take in passing. If we would give the 
world evidence that Christianity is divine, we 
must do as Jesus did when he would answer 
John's question. We are not called to open 
blind eyes, to unstop deaf ears, to heal the lame, 
to raise the dead ; but we are called to be loving 
and sympathetic, comforters of sorrow, friends 
to the widow and orphan, and a blessing to every 
life that touches ours. 

One who had been a student of theology writes : 
" One of my beloved professors had been giving 
us a very able lecture upon some of those risk 
questions of biblical criticism, questions which 
somewhat induced doubt and tended to unsettle. 
But it so happened that that very afternoon, when 
the lecture was over, I had to crush my hat on 

3 2 






Unto His Nest Again 

my head and run to my district. I had some- 
thing there to do which checked and corrected 
all unsettling effects of biblical criticism. I had 
to go into one house where, upon the only table 
in the room, there was a long coffin, with two 
small ones beside it. The mother had died sud- 
denly, and two little children also had died within 
the same day. As I stood there, all notion of 
being unsettled by what I had heard an hour be- 
fore utterly vanished from me." 

There is no other cure for doubt so effective 
as to take up the cross of Christ and go after him 
into the lanes and alleys, and amid the world's 
poverty, and need, sorrow, and sin, setting our 
feet in the prints of his shoes, and carrying his 
gospel into the darkest places. In doing his will 
we shall learn to know of the doctrine. In try- 
ing to do his work we shall find solution for the 
mysteries that perplex us. Instead, therefore, 
of troubling ourselves over the difficulties that 
men are finding, perplexing ourselves over the 
questions they are raising, we should turn our 
faces toward the world's suffering and woe, and 
seek to carry into it a little of the love and grace 
of Christ. This is a better cure by far for our 
doubts and perplexities than we can ever find in 
controversy and disputation. 

Longfellow, in one of his poems, tells of 
c 33 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

passing through his garden and seeing on the 
ground a fallen bird-nest, ruined and full of ruin. 
But when he looked up into the tree he saw the 
little birds, uncomplaining, busy there among 
the branches, building a new nest for themselves. 
Here is a lesson for any who have lost the joy 
of their Christian faith. The nest of trust in 
which they once found such sweet peace has 
been torn to shreds by the storms of trial or by 
the wintry winds of doubt. It seems to them, 
perhaps, that they can never again have the joy 
they once had in Christ. They are disheartened, 
almost in despair. But is it not worth while to 
fly up again among the branches and to rebuild 
the torn and ruined nest ? Doubt is too sad a 
state to stay in even for a day. Believe in the 
love of God, the divinity of Christ, the atone- 
ment made on the cross, and the revelation of 
God in his word. Seek to realize in your own 
life the gentleness and mercy of the love of 
Christ. Thus you will build again a nest of 
peace for your soul, and your lost joy will be 
restored. 



34 



CHAPTER III. 

The Silent Christ. 

God answers prayer : sometimes, when hearts are weak, 
He gives the very gifts believers seek. 
But often faith must learn a deeper rest, 
And trust God's silence when he does not speak; 
For he whose name is Love will send the best. 
Stars may burn out, nor mountain walls endure, 
But God is true ; his promises are sure 
To those who seek. 

Myra Goodwin Plantz. 

Usually Jesus was quick to answer cries for 
help. No mother's heart ever waked so easily 
to her child's calls as the heart of Christ waked 
to the calls of human distress. But once at 
least he was silent to a very bitter cry. 

It was over in the edge of a heathen country. 
The story begins by saying that he went into a 
house and wanted nobody to know that he was 
there. He desired a little time of quiet. Even 
Jesus needed sometimes to rest. But he could 
not be hid. 

An Indian legend tells of a sorcerer, who 
sought to hide the sun, moon, and stars in three 

35 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

great chests, but failed in his effort. One can- 
not hide light ; it reveals itself by its beams. 
One cannot hide fragrant flowers ; their perfume 
reveals their place of concealment. There is a 
kind of wood in China, which, though buried 
in the earth, yet fills all the air about it with its 
perfumes. Nor can good lives be hid. No 
matter how modest and shy they are, wherever 
they go, people know of their presence. There 
is something in them which always reveals them. 
Never was there another such rich, loving, help- 
ful life in this world as that of Jesus. He was 
everybody's friend. His heart was full of com- 
passion. His hand was ever stretched out to 
minister. No wonder he could not be hid even 
in a strange place. Burdened hearts would be 
drawn to him by the very power of his love 
and sympathy. 

A heathen woman heard of him that day and 
came to him with a pitiful plea. It is worth 
while to notice that it was this woman's trouble 
that sent her to Christ. If all had been sunshine 
in her house, she would not have gone to seek 
him. This is one of the blessings of trouble — 
it often leads us into experiences of blessing 
we never should have had but for our suffering. 
We never shall know till we have gone to 
heaven how much we owe to pain and sorrow. 

36 



The Silent Christ 

Then we shall see that the long days when one 
was sick in our house were days of wondrous 
divine revealing, that what we called our mis- 
fortunes and calamities were really pieces of 
shaded path leading to nobler blessings. 

It is interesting to think of the good that has 
come to the world through the centuries, from 
the mere telling of the story of this woman's 
trouble. Other mothers with suffering children 
have been encouraged to bring their burdens to 
Christ, as they have read of this mother and her 
persistent, and finally availing plea. Other 
pleaders at the throne of grace, discouraged for 
a time, as they have seen this prayer prevail at 
length, have taken fresh hope. No one can tell 
what a history of blessing this one fragment of 
the gospel has left among men. Yet this story 
never would have been written but for the piti- 
ful suffering of a little girl. We do not know 
what blessing may go out into the world from 
the anguish in our home which is so hard for us 
to endure. Every human pain or sorrow is in- 
tended to make this world a little gentler, sweeter, 
warmer-hearted. We should never forget that 
the gospel, which these nineteen centuries has 
been changing the earth from coldness, harshness, 
cruelty and barbarism, into love, gentleness, 
humane feeling and brotherly kindness, is the 

37 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

story of a sorrow — the sorrow of Calvary. We 
ought to be willing to endure pain to make the 
world more heaven-like. 

We are not told anything about this woman 
save that she was a woman with a great burden 
of sorrow. She was a broken-hearted mother, 
with a demoniac child. But that is enough for 
us to know. Her sorrow makes her kin to us 
all. It was not her own trouble, either. She 
was not sick. Yet hear her cry : " Lord, help 
me." She represented a great class of burdened 
and crushed people who are bowed down under 
the maladies or the sins of others. Especially 
was she the type of many human mothers whose 
hearts are broken by the sufferings or by the 
evil ways of their children. You never enter a 
sick-room where a child lies in pain, and the 
mother keeps watch, but the mother is suffering 
more than the child. There are many parents 
prematurely stooped and old, by reason of the 
burdens they are bearing for or on account of 
their children. 

This mother's persistence in pressing her 
plea was very remarkable. When she came first, 
Jesus " answered her not a word." He stood 
silent before her piteous appealing. But she 
would not be discouraged, and, as he walked on 
and talked with his disciples, she continued fol- 

38 



The Silent Christ 

lowing, and beseeching him to have mercy on 
her. When the silence was broken at length, 
it was in words which seemed strangely harsh 
and insulting, coming from the lips of the Christ. 
Yet even the offensive words did not chill the 
ardor of her earnestness. Indeed, she caught at 
the very offensiveness, seeing hope in them. She 
was content to be a dog and to take a dog's 
portion. Even the crumbs from that table 
would abundantly satisfy her. 

The woman's prayer and its final answer tell 
us that we may bring to Christ in our love and 
faith those who cannot come to him themselves. 
Many of Christ's healings were in answer to the 
prayers of friends. It is not enough for us to 
pray for ourselves. That love is not doing its 
full duty which does not carry its dear ones to 
God in supplication. 

Then this mother teaches us how to pray — 
not timidly, faintly and feebly, but with all the 
earnestness of passionate love, strengthened by 
overcoming faith. When we are at Christ's 
feet with our burden, we are before One who 
can help us, whatever our need. We should 
determine to stay there till we get our plea. 
This mother's supplication was as different 
from many of our tame, mildly uttered requests 
which we call prayers, as the storm's wild 

39 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

sweep is from evening's soft zephyr. Silence 
did not discourage her. Refusal did not check 
her pleadings. Reproach had no power to 
drive her away. Such faith overcomes every 
obstacle and wins its way to sublimest victory. 

Christ's treatment of this mother is one of 
the strangest things in the Bible. It seems at 
first scarcely consistent with our conception of 
Christ's character. On nearly all other occa- 
sions he answered at once, but now, when the 
woman came to him with her broken-hearted 
supplication, he answered not a word. When 
she continued crying, his only reply was a 
refusal, on the ground that his mission was not 
to any but his own people. Then, when she 
still persisted and cast herself at his feet, looking 
up appealingly to him, and pleading still for 
mercy, what was his reply ? Not a kindly no, 
such as he might have spoken, to make the pain 
of refusal as little as possible, but words which 
some haughty Pharisee might have used, calling 
the sorrowing woman a Gentile dog. 

How can this be explained? If we were to 
hear that some good, generous, kindly Christian 
man, whom we know, had treated a poor dis- 
tressed woman in this way, either we would not 
believe it, or we would say that the man must 
have been mentally disturbed, — that he was not 

40 



The Silent Christ 

himself that day, because of some secret trouble 
of his own. Men do such things, — they do 
treat the poor and distressed coldly, rudely, even 
in these late Christian days, — but not men like 
Jesus. When we think of the character of Jesus 
— so gracious, so unselfish, so compassionate, and 
that he was always so ready to help even outcasts 
— this narrative perplexes us beyond measure. 

We may as well admit, too, that there are 
difficulties not unlike those we meet here, in 
many of God's providences in our own days. 
We believe in God's fatherhood, in his love and 
grace, in his tender thought and care of his 
children. Yet the world is full of sorrows. 
Distressed mothers yet cry to heaven for relief 
in their troubles, and he who sits on the throne 
is silent to them. Prayers seem to go long un- 
answered, and suppliants appear to get no pity 
from him whom we believe to be full of com- 
passion. These are painful perplexities with 
many good people. 

If we can find an explanation for Christ's 
treatment of this heathen mother, it will help 
us to understand many of the other difficulties 
in God's ways with his people. It is very clear 
that what seemed unkindness was not unkindness. 
While Jesus was silent to her pleading and ap- 
parently indifferent, he was not really indifFerent. 

4i 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

He did hear her, and his heart was interested in 
her sorrow. When he seemed to spurn her, 
there was not in his heart toward her the slight- 
est feeling of real contempt or spurning. He 
did not despise her. His thought toward her 
did not change at the last, when he yielded to 
her importunity and healed her child. His 
compassion was moved at her first approach to 
him. He intended all the while to grant her 
request. His treatment of her was only seem- 
ingly unkind. Suppose she had given up and 
turned away when Jesus seemed to be so in- 
different to her, think what she would have 
lost ! Her faith faltered not, and at last she 
got the blessing. 

It is evident, too, that there was a meaning of 
wise love in Christ's apparently harsh and severe 
treatment of this woman. It was the very treat- 
ment her faith needed. Of this we may be sure 
as we read the story through to its close. We 
are safe in saying that gentle kindness from the 
first would not have brought out such a noble 
faith in the end as did the apparent harshness. 
We are apt to forget that the aim of God with 
us is not to flood us all the time with tenderness, 
not to keep our path strewn always with flowers, 
not to give us everything we want, not to save 
us from all manner of suffering. God's aim 

42 



The Silent Christ 

with us is to make something of us, to build up 
in us strong and noble character, to bring out in 
us qualities of grace and beauty. To do this he 
must ofttimes deny us what we ask for and must 
seem indifferent to our cries. 

There are sentimental ideas of God prevalent 
which are dishonoring to him. There are those 
who imagine that love in God means tenderness 
that cannot cause pain, nor look a moment on 
suffering without relieving it ; that must instantly 
hear and answer every cry for the removal of 
trouble. Not such a God is the God of the 
Bible. When suffering is the best thing for us, 
he is not too sympathetic to let us suffer till the 
work of suffering is accomplished in us. He is 
not too kind to be silent to our prayers when it 
is better he should be silent for a time to allow 
faith to grow strong, self-confidence to be swept 
away, and the evil in us to be burned out in the 
furnace of pain. 

Here, in this very story, we have an example 
of human compassion that seems more tender 
than Christ's. The disciples begged the Master 
to listen to the woman's cries. They could not 
bear the anguish of her sorrow. It was too 
much for their nerves. But Jesus remained un- 
moved. No one will say that these rough fisher- 
men were really more gentle-hearted than Jesus ; 

43 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

but they were less wise in their love than he was. 
They were not strong enough to wait till the 
right time for helping. They would have helped 
at once, and thus would have marred the work 
the Master was doing in the woman's soul. 

This is a danger with all of us. Our tender- 
ness lacks strength. We cannot see people suf- 
fer, and so we hasten to give relief before the 
ministry of suffering is accomplished. We think 
of our mission to men as being only to make life 
easier for them. We are continually lifting away 
burdens which it were better to have left resting 
longer on our friend's shoulder. We are eager 
to make life easy for our children when it were 
better if it had been left hard. We answer 
prayers too soon, ofttimes, — not asking if it were 
better for the suppliant to wait longer before 
receiving. In our dealing with human souls, we 
break down when we hear the first cries of peni- 
tence, hurrying to give assurance of pardon, 
when it were better if we left the penitent spirit 
longer with God for the deepening of conviction 
and of the sense of sin, and for the most com- 
plete humbling of the soul. 

We must learn that God does not deal with 
us in this emotional way. He is not too tender 
to see us suffer, if more suffering is needed to 
work in us the discipline that will make us like 

44 



The Silent Christ 

Christ. Here we have the key of many of the 
mysteries of providence. Life is not easy for 
us ; it is not meant to be easy. Prayers are not 
all answered the moment they are offered. Cries 
for the relief of pain do not always bring instant 
relief. 

Suppose, for a moment, that God did give us 
everything we ask, and did remove immediately 
every little pain, trouble, difficulty and hardness 
that we seek to have removed, what would be 
the result on us ? How selfish it would make 
us ! We should grow willful, — not thinking of 
God's will, but only of our own. We should 
become weak, unable to endure suffering, to bear 
trial, to carry burdens, or to struggle. We 
should be only children always and would never 
rise into manly strength. God's over-kindness 
to us would pamper in us all the worst elements 
of our nature and would make us only poor 
driveling creatures. On the other hand, how- 
ever, God's wise and firm treatment of us teaches 
us the great lessons which make us strong with 
the strength of Christ himself. He teaches us 
to yield our own will to him. He develops in 
us patience, faith, love, hope and peace. He 
trains us to endure hardness that we may grow 
heroic and self-reliant. 

It is evident that at no time in the progress 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

of this experience did Jesus mean to refuse this 
woman's plea. His cold silence was not denial. 
His apparent harshness was not rejection. He 
delayed for wise reasons. His treatment of the 
woman from beginning to end was for the train- 
ing of her faith. He answered not a word, that 
her pleading might grow stronger. At the last 
he commended the woman as he commended few 
other people in all his ministry. 

It is well for us to make careful note of this, 
— that in all God's delays when we pray, his 
aim is some good in us. Perhaps we are willful, 
asking only for our own way, and must learn to 
say, " Thy will be done." Perhaps we are 
weak, unable to bear pain, or to endure adversity 
or loss, and we must be trained and disciplined 
into strength. Perhaps our desires are only for 
earthly good, not for heavenly, and we must be 
taught the transitory character of all worldly 
things and led to desire things which are eternal. 
Perhaps we are impatient, and must be taught 
to wait for God. We are like children in our 
eager restlessness, and need to learn self-restraint. 
At least we may always know that silence is not 
refusal, that God hears and cares, and that when 
our faith has learned its lessons he will answer 
in blessing. 

When God does not seem to answer he is 

46 



The Silent Christ 

drawing us nearer to him. Ofttimes our unan- 
swered prayers mean more of blessing to us than 
those that are answered. The lessons set for us 
in them are harder, but they are greater, richer 
lessons. It is better for us to learn the lesson 
of submission and trust than it is to get some 
new sweet joy which only adds to our present 
comfort. Whether, therefore, he speaks or is 
silent, he has a blessing for us. 

Unanswered yet, the prayer your lips have pleaded 
In agony of heart, these many years ? 

Does faith begin to fail ? is hope departing, 
And think you all in vain those falling tears ? 

Say not the Father hath not heard your prayer. 

You shall have your desire, sometime, somewhere. 

Unanswered yet ? Nay, do not say ungranted ; 

Perhaps your part is not yet wholly done. 
The work began when first your prayer was uttered, 

And God will finish what he has begun. 
If you will keep the incense burning there, 
His glory you shall see, sometime, somewhere. 

Unanswered yet ? Faith cannot be unanswered ; 

Her feet are firmly planted on the Rock ; 
Amid the wildest storms she stands undaunted, 

Nor quails before the loudest thunder shock. 
She knows Omnipotence has heard her prayer, 
And cries, " It shall be done, sometime, somewhere." 



47 



CHAPTER IV. 

Tempted Like as We are. 

To be like him ; to keep 

Unspotted from the world ; to reap 
But where he leads ; to think, 
To dream, to hope as one who would but drink 

Of purity, and grow 

More like the Christ; to go 
Through time's sweet labyrinths pure, and brave, and true; 
To stand sin's tests ; to dare, to do 

For him though all the price 

Be stained in dye of sacrifice. 

This were to be 

Sustained by his infinity, 

And given 

A foretaste of the ecstasy of heaven. 

George Klingle. 

No human soul has ever escaped temptation. 
There have been fierce and terrific assaults be- 
fore which the noblest natures have quailed, 
and the bravest, strongest hearts have trembled. 
Earth's battle-fields are not all marked out on 
the school-boy's maps. The stories of the 
world's great battles are not all told in our 
histories. It was just after his baptism and his 

48 



Tempted Like as We are 

consecration to his work as the Messiah that 
Jesus went to his temptation. An old writer 
says : " All the while our Saviour stayed in his 
father's shop and meddled only with carpenter's 
chips, the devil troubled him not ; now that he 
is to enter more publicly upon his mediatorship, 
the tempter pierceth his tender soul with many 
sorrows by solicitation to sin." 

For forty days Jesus had been fasting. " If 
thou be the Son of God," said the tempter, 
"command that these stones be made bread." 
There is no harm in eating when one is hungry. 
There would seem to have been nothing wrong 
in Jesus' turning a few stones into loaves of 
bread. " Man doth not live by bread alone," 
said he, " but by every word of God." It is 
a great deal more important that 1 shall obey 
God's commandments than that I shall get bread 
to eat. My duty is to do God's will first, last, 
always ; the matter of bread is secondary. 

" Throw thyself down," said the tempter, 
" from yonder lofty pinnacle, into the crowded 
street, and let God keep thee from being hurt. 
He has promised to give his angels charge over 
thee." Why would it have been wrong for 
Jesus to do this ? He said it would have been 
tempting God, claiming his promise in needless 
danger. When you rush into peril without the 
d 49 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

divine bidding, you can claim no shelter, no 
protection. You are tempting God. 

Satan then gave Jesus a vision of universal 
power, all lands at his feet — Greece, Rome, the 
great Orient, the broad West. " All this is 
yours if you will worship me." Already there 
was in the soul of Jesus another vision of uni- 
versal power, all the world his kingdom ; but it 
was spiritual power and the way to it led by a 
cross. The tempter suggested power of this 
world, with pomp and splendor, and the cross 
avoided. But think of the price : " Fall down 
and worship me." 

It is said that a little daughter of Nathaniel 
Hawthorne's had a wonderful faculty for invent- 
ing stories. One day she was overheard telling 
her brother about a very naughty child, who 
grew naughtier and naughtier, till at last she 
struck God. As we read the story of these 
temptations, coming to the last one, in which 
the tempter asks the Son of God to fall down 
and worship him, is it not the child's fancy 
realized — naughtier and naughtier till at last he 
struck God ? 

Why was Jesus tempted of the devil ? We 
are told that he was led — Mark says driven — by 
the Spirit, into the wilderness, to be tempted 
by the devil. It was not, therefore, an accident ; 

5° 



Tempted Like as We are 

it was part of his preparation. He came from 
Nazareth, after thirty years of quiet life, and 
was baptized, and thus set apart for his mission 
of redeeming the world. But before he begins 
his work, he must be tried. Adam was tried, 
and he failed. The second Adam must be tried 
too, to prove that he is able to save men. If 
he had not been successful in his conflicts, how 
could he have delivered any others from the 
tempter's power ? 

Long, long ago, — the legend runs, — in a far- 
distant land, dwelt a giant — OfFero. He had 
wonderful power. He had a strange desire to 
serve the mightiest king in the world. He 
found one who seemed great, and entered his 
service. Together with his king he fought 
many battles. One day a minstrel came to the 
king's court and sang, and OfFero noticed that 
every time the name of Satan was mentioned, 
the king grew pale and trembled, and bent his 
knee and crossed himself. " Ah," said OfFero, 
" he who is to be my master must quail at 
nothing. There must be a greater king than 
thou, this Satan whom thou dost dread. I leave 
thy service and I will journey till I find this 
mightier monarch, and I will give him my 
sword." 

So he wandered, seeking Satan, up and down 

5i 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

the mountain steep, far across the trackless 
desert, through deep forests, resting not until he 
had found the arch-fiend. Before him he bowed, 
crying : 

" I lie before thee, prostrate in the very dust ; 

May my right hand fail if ever it prove recreant to its 
trust." 

For long years Offero stayed with Satan. 
Many were the battles they fought. Offero 
was a brave champion. But one day, near an 
ancient city, they paused to rest and to drink 
from a wayside fountain. Beside the fountain 
stood a little cross, with a figure carved upon it. 
Satan shrank back, and would not drink. He 
began to tremble, too, before the cross. Offero 
saw it. " Ah," he said, " thou tremblest. Why 
is it ?" Satan answered, " On this cross the 
Saviour died — he, Lord of heaven and earth, 
greater than all kings besides, crowned now with 
glory. It is he I dread." 

" Then I leave thee," said the giant. " I 
will serve none but the mightiest. I will seek 
this mightier king and will serve him." 

So again he went forth and wandered far and 
wide, asking everywhere for this Saviour who 
on the cross had died. One day he met an 
ancient hermit, who taught him the gospel story, 

52 



Tempted Like as We are 

and told him how to find the Saviour. Offero 
was filled with love for the Christ, the mightiest 
of all kings, and longed to do brave and noble 
things for this new Master. 

" Knowest thou a deep, wide river," asked the 
hermit, " rushing down between dark chasms ? 
Strong and rapid is its current, and many shrink 
to cross it. Thou canst aid them, mighty giant. 
Thou canst lend a helping hand, guiding them 
through the rushing floods. Thus thou canst 
serve the Saviour." 

With joy in his heart, OfFero went and crossed 
the foaming river, built a simple hut of branches, 
and became the pilgrim's guide. He strength- 
ened many fainting souls. He saved many from 
death. Always, while he did his noble deeds, 
there arose before his eyes that figure on the 
cross — fair and saintly, with deep wounds on 
hands and feet, with a face of wondrous beauty, 
wearing a smile of love and peace. 

One night, the great giant was sleeping in his 
hut, when he heard, faintly calling, a childish 
voice, " Offero, good OfFero, wake at once, and 
carry me over the river." It was a wild night. 
The floods ran high and the winds were fierce. 
Through the darkness and the storm still wailed 
the child's voice, " Come quickly, Offero. I 
am weary ; bear me over the river." The giant 

53 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

hastened to answer the call. Through a rift in 
the clouds a moonbeam streamed down upon the 
waters, and he saw a child struggling there alone. 
He caught the littl'e one in his arms and bravely- 
set out to carry him across the stream. But at 
every step the child's weight increased, until the 
giant felt that he must sink under his load. Yet 
he struggled on, praying for strength, and safely 
reached the shore. 

" Whom have I borne ?" he murmured. " It 
is thy Lord," answered the child. " Long hast 
thou desired to see me. Thou thoughtest to 
help one of my little ones, through love for me,, 
and thou hast borne me, thy Lord, across the 
waters. He who has carried the Saviour must 
henceforth be called Christ-Offero." 

It is but a legend, and yet its teaching is 
beautiful. We want for our soul's Master one 
who fears no enemy, who trembles and quails 
before no power, who is matchless in his strength. 
We want one for our Saviour who never can be 
overcome. We are immortal. Not for to-day 
only, but through eternal years, we shall need a 
friendship that is not tender only, but also strong 
and secure. No earthly power meets this con- 
dition. The sweetest human love is but trem- 
bling weakness before the world's mighty forces. 
We cannot worship one who fears any foe. We 

54 



Tempted Like as We are 

cannot trust ourselves absolutely and forever in 
the hands of one who is not stronger than the 
strongest. 

Here, emerging from the wilderness, with the 
light of victory in his face, comes the Lord 
Christ. He has met the very concentration of 
all the world's evil and has vanquished it. We 
need never be afraid to trust him. There are 
no chains he cannot break. He is a tried 
Saviour. In all our struggles and temptations, 
we may turn to him for help and deliverance. 

Jesus was tempted, too, that he might under- 
stand our experiences of temptation. " It be- 
hoved him in all things to be made like unto his 
brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful 
high priest. . . . For in that he himself hath 
suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them 
that are tempted." These words assure us that 
the temptations of Christ were not mere empty 
forms, mere simulacra of temptations, but intense 
realities. He suffered, being tempted. It cost 
him anguish to resist. He resisted unto blood. 

Power is not enough in him whom your soul 
craves to have for Saviour, Helper, Friend. 
Power alone is cold. He may be the all-con- 
queror. It may be that he has vanquished every 
energy of evil and bound the strong one in his 
own house. He may be resistless in his might, 

55 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

and you may be secure in the shelter of his 
strength. But your heart craves tenderness. 
You must have sympathy. The one to whom 
you will turn as your Lord and Master must be 
able to enter into all the experiences of your 
life. This, too, we have in Jesus Christ. He 
is not only God, with all power ; he is also man, 
with all human feelings, affections, emotions, 
sympathies. Having been tempted in all points, 
like as we are, he can be touched with the feel- 
ing of our infirmities. 

There is a picture which represents an angel 
standing by the empty cross of our Saviour. It 
is in the evening, after the crucifixion. The 
body has been taken down and laid to rest in 
the grave. The crowd has dispersed. Desola- 
tion and loneliness reign about the place. There 
stands the angel, touching with his fingers the 
sharp points of the thorns in the crown which 
Jesus had worn. The artist's thought is that 
the angel looked with wonder and awe on the 
sufferings of Christ. He could not understand 
them, for angels have never suffered, and hence 
there is nothing in the angel-nature or experi- 
ence to interpret suffering, He is trying to 
make out what pain is, and he cannot understand 
the mystery. 

There are people among our friends who come 

56 



Tempted Like as We are 

and stand beside us in our sorrow or suffering, 
and yet understand nothing of what we are ex- 
periencing. Their hearts are tender and their 
love is deep and strong, but they have never 
suffered, and therefore there is nothing in them 
to interpret to them what is going on in us. 
Then there comes another friend, and in his 
face and eye we catch at once the revealing of 
sympathy. He understands what is passing in 
our soul. He enters into our experience. 
Every struggle or pain in our heart finds an 
answering chord in his. He has suffered, him- 
self, and his nature has thus been prepared for 
sympathy. 

Wonderful is this power of sympathy. Won- 
derful is the help that passes from the sympa- 
thetic heart to other lives. It is this which 
gives to certain great preachers their power to 
help others by their words ; those who listen 
to them hear the heart-beat in their sermons, 
and feel instinctively that they understand what 
they are saying, because they have experienced 
it. It is this that makes certain books so wel- 
come to the weary, the sorrowing and the 
struggling ; their pages breathe sympathy in 
every line. You can understand in others only 
what you have learned for yourself in your own 
living. If you have not suffered being tempted, 

57 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

there is nothing in you to interpret to your 
heart what I am suffering while passing through 
my struggles and conflicts. But if you have 
fought the battles yourself, you understand what 
is going on in me when I am fighting them. 

These are hints of what Christ brought from 
the wilderness in the way of preparation for his 
great work of priestly help. Nor are we to 
suppose that it was only in the wilderness that 
he learned life's lessons. All his years were 
filled with human experiences — childhood's, 
young manhood's, the poor man's, the working- 
man's, the experiences of ingratitude, of weak 
friendship, of false friendship, of unkind treatment, 
of rejection, of bitter sorrow, of death, of lying in 
the grave. So he stands to-day in the midst of 
the world of struggling humanity, and there is 
nothing in any heart's cry that he does not under- 
stand. It matters not what your peculiar ex- 
perience may be, in him your soul finds the 
answering chord. 

It is this that makes Jesus Christ such a real 
friend to those who come to him. They are 
sure always of perfect sympathy. He knows 
how hard it is for us to be good, true and 
patient, for he has passed through life before us. 
He knows how the world tempts the young 
man who is ambitious to succeed. He knows 

58 



Tempted Like as We are 

how the temptation to be dishonest tries the 
soul of the man who is hungry. He knows all 
the temptations that come to us, and looks upon 
us in loving sympathy as we endure them. Men 
seem cold and indifferent, as they hurry along 
in their diverse ways, casting no thought upon 
us in our heart-hunger, in our longing, in our 
need ; but there is One who is never indifferent. 
He hears the plash of every tear that falls in 
secret. His heart is thrilled with every feel- 
ing of pain or pleasure, of hope or fear, of joy 
or sorrow, that sweeps through our heart. 

Yet sympathy is not all of the blessing. 
There are those who sympathize but give no 
help. Their feeling is only a feeble echo of 
ours. They sit down beside us in our sorrow 
and their hearts beat with ours, but there is no 
uplift in their tenderness. They put no new 
strength into our heart, no new courage or cheer. 
But Christ sympathizes and then helps. He has 
learned life's ways, and he guides us in them. 
He carried the world's sorrows, and when we 
are in sorrow he can give us true comfort. He 
knows what comes out of sorrow sweetly borne, 
and he can strengthen us to endure. 

One of the beautiful legends of Brittany tells 
of a town called Is, which long since was swal- 
lowed up by the sea. The fishermen relate 

59 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

strange things of this legendary city. They say 
that sometimes the tops of the church-spires may 
be seen in the hollow of the waves, when the 
storms rage wildly, and that during a calm the 
music of the buried bells is heard ringing out in 
sweetest notes. 

It is only a legend. But in the world's great sea 
there are countless lives that have been buried — 
some in sin's floods, some in sorrow's depths. 
As we listen, we hear the bells ringing down in 
the dark waters. Some ring plaintively — the 
cry of pain, suffering and despair. Some ring 
yearningly — the longings, desires and aspirations 
of human souls for better life. 

There is One who hears all this music, all 
these notes of pain and longing. The Lord 
Jesus Christ hears every human heart's cry, 
whatever its tone. It is but little that the best 
human love can do ; but here is One who knows 
all, who loves better than he knows, who is 
able to help and to save unto the uttermost. 
Who would not take this all-conquering, all- 
sympathizing, all-helping Christ into his life as 
Saviour, Master and Friend ? 



60 



CHAPTER V. 
The Greatest Love. 

" Long, long centuries 
Agone, One walked the earth, his life 
A seeming failure 5 
Dying, he gave the world a gift 

That will outlast eternities." 

Love is the greatest thing in the world. St. 
Paul tells us this in his immortal chapter in 
which he sings love's praises. It is greatest in 
its endurance. Other things fail ; love never 
fails. Prophecies have their place, but they are 
like blossoms which fade and fall off when the 
fruit comes. Knowledge, too, is great, but 
knowledge becomes old, gffete, outgrown, and 
is forever left behind as we go on to new 
knowledge. But love abides. 

A writer in a little poem tells the story of 
two lovers. First, they sit by a moss-grown 
spring, leaning soft cheeks together. Next, we 
see a wedded pair, stepping from the portal 
amid sweet bell notes and the fragrance of flowers. 
Later, two faces bend over a cradle watching a 

61 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

life that love has sent. Further on, we see the 
same two, sitting by the evening lire whose red 
light falls about their knees, with a cluster of 
little heads around them. Once more we see 
them, — the fire burns on the hearth, and they 
sit there as before ; but all the heads by slow 
degrees have gone, leaving that lonely pair — oh, 
vanished past ! But the same sweet love that 
drew them close to each other by the moss- 
grown spring, so long ago, still binds them 
together. 

" The red light shone upon the floor 

And made the space between them wide ; 

They drew their chairs up side by side." 

Their pale cheeks joined, and said, " Once 
more !" 

" Oh, memories ! 
Oh, past that is !" 

" Love never faileth." It lives on amid all 
fadings and vanishings and all changes. Love 
is life. Loving is living. Not to love is not 
to live. When love dies, there is nothing left 
worth while. A poet writes : 

" The night has a thousand eyes, 
And the day but one ; 
Yet the light of the bright world dies 
With the dying sun." 
62 



The Greatest Love 

The mind has a thousand eyes, 

And the heart but one ; 
Yet the light of a whole life dies 

When love is done. 

The works that will live longest are the works 
that love achieves. Leave love out, and all you 
do without it is sordid. Let love die in your 
heart, and you may as well be dead. Love is 
life's light and glory. There are great human 
loves. Great is the patriot's love for his country. 
Some of the world's noblest heroisms have been 
inspired by love for native land. Great is 
parental love, whose holy devotion seems likest 
God's of all human affections. There are 
tender stories of the love of brothers and sisters, 
of friend and friend, of lover and beloved. Vol- 
umes could be written telling of the deeds of 
love. But there is a love greater than any, than 
all of these together. Human loves are but 
little fragments of the divine love dropped 
down from heaven. 

Some scientist, trying to account for vegetable 
life on this planet, suggests the theory that when 
the globe was ready for it, with mellow, rich 
and fertile soil on its plains, but no life yet, a 
fragment of a meteor from some other world, 
where there was life, fell to the earth, bearing 
on it seeds or roots, which grew, thus starting 

63 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

on the globe the life of another world. This 
is only a theory, but it illustrates the origin of 
love in this world. Human affection is a spark 
of the divine fire of love dropped out of the 
heart of God. All love is of God. The love 
of father, of mother, of brother, of sister, of 
lover, of friend, of patriot, of little child — all has 
come from God. 

All the light in this world is from the sun. 
Wherever you find a beam shining on open 
field or in gloomy dungeon, it is from the one 
sun. Wherever you find a little flower bloom- 
ing in conservatory, or garden, in the depth of 
the forest, or on bare mountain crag, the sun 
painted it. So wherever you find love in a 
human heart, in a home of beauty or in a 
hovel, in little child or old man, in saintly 
Christian or in breast of savage, it is from God. 
The heart of God is the fountain of all pure 
affection. 

" God hides himself within the love 
Of those whom we love best ; 
The smiles and tones that make our homes 
Are shrines by him possessed." 

Christ is called the Word. A word reveals 
the thought, the feeling, the desire, that is in 
the heart. Jesus Christ revealed what was in 

64 



The Greatest Love 

the heart of God. God is love. Christ is the 
love of God brought down to the earth, so that 
we can see it and understand something of its 
wonderful character. 

The love of Christ " passeth knowledge." 
This does not mean that we can know nothing 
of it. It means that we can never fully know 
it. We can never understand all its wonderful 
meaning. Everything about God passeth knowl- 
edge. Augustine was trying to comprehend the 
trinity, to solve the mystery of three in one and 
one in three. One night he dreamed that he 
stood beside the sea and saw a child with a shell 
dipping up water from the great ocean, and 
emptying it into a tiny hollow scooped out in 
the sand. When asked what he was doing, the 
child replied that he was putting the sea into his 
little lake. The great man smiled at the child's 
folly. " But it is no more foolish," said the 
child, " than what you are trying to do, — to 
measure in your finite human mind the infinite 
truth of the divine trinity." At the best we 
can understand only a little of the love of God 
revealed in Christ. But we should seek to 
comprehend all we can of it. 

St. Paul speaks of the breadth, the length, 
the depth and height of the love of Christ. 
In its breadth it reaches out and takes in all the 
e 65 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

race. There is not a tiny grass blade, nor a 
flower, growing in any nook or corner which 
can say, " The sun does not shine for me. The 
clouds do not drop their rain for me." So in 
no dreary spot of earth is there a man, woman 
or child who can say, " The love of Christ is 
not for me." 

But while universal, it is not merely a love 
for the race as such, but is individual. There 
are men who have a sort of benevolent love for 
certain classes of unfortunate people, and yet 
have no care for any individuals of those classes. 
Their love is only a sentiment. But this is not 
the way Christ loves. He looks down with 
compassion upon the darkened masses in heathen 
lands, but has a distinct love for each individual. 
It is said that he calleth all the stars by their 
names. " Yes," you say, " but stars are so 
large, that it is not strange he knows all their 
names. I am but a tiny speck on one of God's 
stars. How can he have a distinct love for such 
a little one, among so many millions of people ?" 
Well, you are greater than any star in all the 
heavens, for the stars will some day burn out 
and cease to be, but you are an immortal soul ; 
you wear God's image. 

Then stars are only things, while you are 
God's child. Does a mother love her children 

66 



The Greatest Love 

only as a family ? Does not each child have a 
distinct place in her thought and affection ? 
God loves his children in the same way. " Bat 
there are so many of them," you say. " How 
can he love hundreds of millions as individuals?" 
God himself is so great that it is no harder for 
him to carry hundreds of millions in his affec- 
tion than it is for a human mother to love her 
five or six children. Every child has all a 
mother's love. She does not love the first one 
less when the second one comes. The love of 
her heart is not divided into fractions and frag- 
ments by the number of her children. Each 
one has all the mother's love. So each human 
individual has all of God's deep, eternal love. 

If this were only understood, however im- 
perfectly, it would change much of the world's 
darkness to light. There are some who think 
no one cares for them. This feeling is very 
sad. 

" The lonely heart that knows not love's 
Soft power, or friendship's ties, 
Is like yon withering flower that bows 
Its gentle head, touched to the quick, 
For that the genial sun hath hid his light j 
And sighing, dies." 

It is very sad to live unloved. There are 
few whose fate this is. Even for the loneliest 

67 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

there is some heart that cares. But if there 
were no human love left on the earth, God loves 
every one, and his is real love, too, tenderer 
than a mother's, deeper, truer, stronger. 

Or we may think of the length of the love 
of Christ. We may think of him in heaven, 
and his love streams down to earth and touches 
us. It is more than ninety millions of miles to 
the sun, and yet his beams come through all 
that vast reach of space and warm the roots of 
the grasses into life on the spring davs and kiss 
the flowers into beauty and fragrance. The 
love of Christ is as long as from God's throne to 
earth's lowliest places. 

Another suggestion of the length of the love 
of Christ comes from the words which tell us 
of its duration. " I have loved thee with an 
everlasting love." " The mountains shall de- 
part, and the hills be removed ; but my kindness 
shall not depart from thee." " I am persuaded, 
that neither death, nor life, . . . nor things pres- 
ent, nor things to come . . . shall be able to 
separate us from the love of God, which is in 
Christ Jesus our Lord." When this love of 
Christ clasps a human life, its clasp is for 
eternal vears. 

Or we may think again of the length of the 
love of Christ in its wonderful forgiveness, its 

68 



The Greatest Love 

infinite patience, its mercy that endureth for- 
ever. Human mercy is usually very short. We 
ask, " How often shall I forgive ? Seven times ?" 
We think seven times a wonderful stretch of 
forgiving. We say that such and such wrongs 
or hurts done to us are unpardonable. We go a 
little farther, perhaps, and say, with the air of 
one who is doing a very saintly thing, " I will 
forgive, but I cannot forget." So we carry 
grudges against our brother, and keep our hurt 
feelings, and refuse to forgive those who have 
injured us, and yet call ourselves Christlike. If 
we could get a vision of the love of Christ in 
its forgiveness, patience and long-suffering, it 
would shame our poor pitiful charity. His love 
never wearies of our sinning. He forgives not 
seven times only, but seventy times seven times. 
He carries no grudges. He forgets, remembers 
no more, forever, our sins against him, when 
once we repent, and he has forgiven us. 

There are chapters in your life story which 
you would not for the world uncover to the eye 
of even your gentlest friend. " He would not 
love me any longer," you say, " if he knew 
these things in me." There are things in your 
inner life — feelings, emotions, desires, imagina- 
tions, jealousies, envyings — which you would not 
dare to lay open to your neighbor's gaze. " He 

69 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

would loathe me," you say. Yet Christ sees 
all, knows all, and still he loves. He loves unto 
the uttermost. His mercy endureth forever. 
His patience never fails. 

We may think also of the depth of Christ's 
love. How shall we fathom it ? Human love 
is often a shallow stream — so shallow that it 
cannot cover even the minor faults and the 
trivial mistakes of its object. St. Paul says that 
charity covers a multitude of sins. He means 
that when we love a friend, our love hides from 
our own eyes his faults and blemishes, and over- 
looks his mistakes and wrong doings. But our 
charity as Christians — does it really cover from 
our eyes the multitude of faults and sins in 
others, even in our closest friends ? Is not the 
stream too often so shallow that every grain of 
sand, every little pebble, and every weed at the 
bottom shows ? But the love of Christ is so 
deep that it covers everything, hides completely 
out of sight the multitude of sins, buries them 
forever in its unfathomable abysses. 

We may see the depth of the love of Christ 
also in his condescension. Never can we know 
what this condescension meant for Christ. We 
can talk of it, and use words which tell of it, 
but what it involved of sacrifice, of emptying 
of self, of pain and suffering, we never can 

70 



The Greatest Love 

know. A German artist, painting a picture of 
the man of sorrows, gave up in despair when he 
came to the face, and painted him with his face 
turned away, thus hiding the countenance which 
he felt himself unable to put upon the canvas. 
So it must always be with the reverent friend of 
Christ who thinks of Christ's sorrows. His 
love passeth knowledge. We never can fathom 
the depth of his condescension. 

Looking at this wonderful manifestation, who 
can doubt for a moment the love of God for 
him ? What proof do we need to show us the 
divine love that was revealed on the cross ? As 
the dawn broke, one morning, over the great 
desert, Merwan knelt by his tent-door and 
prayed. In the caravan was one who doubted 
that there was a God to hear or answer prayer. 
Coming upon Merwan as he prayed, this doubter 
cried, " How dost thou know that Allah is ?" 
Swiftly toward the east, now becoming glorious 
with bursting light, an arm Merwan flung. 
" Dost need a torch to show thee the dawn ?" 
Does any one ask for proof that God is, or that 
God loves ? Look at the cross where the Son 
of God is dying for the world's redemption. 
" Dost need a torch to show thee the dawn ?" 
Do you need proofs from nature — from flower, 
or field, or forest, or sea, or deep mine, or 

71 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

arguments and evidences of the lesser kind, to 
prove that God loves ? Here are the full glories 
of the divine being revealed in the splendor of 
love. We need no torch to show us that dawn. 
We may think also of the height of this 
measureless love. We see its depth in the con- 
descension of Christ to save men. We may 
measure its height by thinking of the exaltation 
which the believing sinner receives — from sin's 
depths, where Christ finds him, to heaven's 
heights, where glory enfolds him. He does 
not merely lift us out of the horrible pit of 
guilt and sin — that is only half a salvation ; he 
also sets our feet upon a rock and establishes our 
goings, and puts a new song into our mouth. 
He restores our soul, until the old lost beauty is 
brought back again. He exalts us to be with 
him, to share the blessedness of heaven, where 

" The quenched lamps of hope are all relighted 
And the golden links of love are reunited." 

This love of Christ passeth knowledge, and 
yet we are bidden to know it. To know it is 
to wake from death to life ; not to know it is to- 
abide in death. Word reached a mother during 
the war that her boy had been wounded. She 
hurried to the field and found the hospital. The 
doctor said, " Your boy is sleeping, If you go 

72 



The Greatest Love 

in and wake him, the excitement will kill him. 
By and by, when he wakes, I will gradually break 
the news that you have come." 

The mother, with her great hungry heart 
yearning to see her boy, looked into the doctor's 
face, and said : " He may never waken. If you 
will let me go in and sit beside him, I promise 
not to speak to him." 

The doctor consented. The mother crept to 
the side of the cot and looked at her boy. How 
she longed to embrace him ! After a ftw mo- 
ments she laid her hand on his forehead. The 
moment her fingers touched his brow, the boy's 
lips moved, and he whispered, without waking 
or opening his eyes, " Mother, you have come." 
The touch of love's hand reached the boy's soul 
even in his delirious sleep. 

There is One whose touch means more than 
a mother's. It is the touch of a pierced hand 
— pierced in love's sacrifice for our redemption. 
Some of us are unconscious of the wonderful 
love that is bending over us with infinite yearn- 
ing. May the touch of that blessed hand reveal 
to our hearts the love, and may we answer in 
faith's whisper, " Jesus, thou hast come!" 



73 



CHAPTER VI. 

Spices for Christ's Grave. 

It is not the deed we do, 

Though the deed be ever so fair, 

But the love, that the dear Lord looketh for, 
Hidden with holy care 
In the heart of the deed so fair. 

Harriet McEwen Kimball. 

Sometimes in a night of storm and darkness 
there will appear for a moment a little rift in 
the heavy clouds, showing a speck of blue sky 
with a single silver star shining in it. Some- 
thing like this is the beautiful incident in the 
story of those dark hours between Christ's 
death and resurrection, when the women went 
out, after the sunsetting, to buy spices for the 
grave of their Friend. 

It had been to them a day of unutterable sad- 
ness. The hope had gone out of their hearts. 
They sat in despairing grief. All was lost that 
made it worth while for them to live. They 
thought the wonderful visions they had had of 
the glory of the Messiah had vanished now for- 

74 



Spices for Christ's Grave 

ever. All that remained to them was a sweet 
memory, a terrible cross, and a dark grave. 

In the dense gloom of that Sabbath there is 
just one spot of brightness. It is the loving act 
of the women friends of Jesus. As soon as the 
holy hours of the Sabbath had closed, they 
hastened out to find the shops, to buy spices and 
ointments to carry to the tomb in the early 
morning, to strew upon the sacred body of their 
beloved dead. 

Thus, the love of women shines out as a 
bright star when even the love of apostles re- 
mained in eclipse. One writer compares it to 
the nightingale which is famed for her sweet 
songs in the night. " She sings in the day as 
well ; only, as other songsters are then in full 
chorus, her sweeter strains are not distinguish- 
able from the rest. But at night, when all others 
are hushed, her song is heard, and is more sweet 
by reason of the contrast with the surrounding 
stillness. So it was with these women. They 
served in the day of bright sunshine, but their 
service was now overshadowed, so to speak, by 
the demonstrative crowd that thronged around 
the Saviour. But when the voice of the noisy, 
effusive crowd was hushed during the dark night 
of trial and suffering, which followed the brief 
day of popularity, they continued to give forth 

75 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

the music of love and sympathy through the 
dark loneliness of the night." 

We must notice that it was love for the dead 
Christ that prompted this sweet service. The 
women had no thought that he would rise again. 
Indeed, the nature of their offering shows that 
they had not. It was to honor his dead body 
that they brought the spices. They had hoped 
that he would live and found a great kingdom, 
but their hopes had perished. They had no 
expectation of ever seeing him again. Yet they 
wanted to honor him. They remembered what 
he had been to them while he was alive. They 
remembered his beautiful life, with its gentle- 
ness, purity and strength. They remembered 
the words they had heard him speak, which had 
been such an inspiration to them. It was love 
for a friend who had been everything to them, 
and now was dead, that inspired these loyal 
women in what they did, and not any hope of 
ever seeing him again alive. 

They did not understand the meaning of his 
death. To them his life was a bewildering 
tragedy. Did it mean that he had failed ? 
They could not tell ; they could not understand 
it. But it left them without hope of seeing him 
again. Yet, mark how they loved and honored 
him, even though they understood not the glori- 

76 



Spices for Christ's Grave 

ous meaning of his death, and saw in it only- 
disaster and hopelessness. 

How much more should we love and honor 
Christ to-day, when all is plain to us, when we 
see the divine love shining out in his death and 
know its whole blessed meaning ! While these 
women were preparing their spices, Jesus still 
lay silent and cold in his grave at the door of 
which Roman soldiers kept' their watch. But 
we see him risen and alive for evermore. On 
his head he wears many crowns. He is our 
friend, living and with us ; not dead and re- 
membered only from a sweet vanished past, but 
our companion, our guide, our helper, with us 
always, in all the blessedness of his love. 

We have much greater reason for honoring 
Christ to-day than these faithful women had at 
the close of that sad, dark Sabbath. They pre- 
pared spices for his dead body. How can we 
best honor him ? The grave is empty and his 
body needs no more to be anointed with the 
fragrant perfumes that are fitting for the dead. 
Bat is there not something suggestive of a true 
heart's offering in spices and ointments with 
their sweet odors ? What have we to bring to 
honor our Redeemer? 

We may bring our heart's true worship. 
Homage is fragrant. The sweetest spices that 

* 77 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

grow in this world are those that grow in the 
garden of love. If we truly love Christ and 
breathe our love out to him in prayer and praise, 
we are honoring him in a way that is most 
pleasing to him. Worship is fragrant to Christ. 
In the ancient temple the altar of incense was 
the altar of prayer and praise. In St. John's 
vision of heaven, he saw golden vials full of 
odors, which were the prayers of saints. The 
meaning is that the worship of earth's humble 
believers rises up to heaven as fragrant incense. 
There is something exquisitely beautiful in this 
thought. The homage, the praise, the plead- 
ings, of God's people rise from lowly homes, 
from sick rooms, from darkened chambers of 
grief, where loved ones kneel beside their dead, 
from humble sanctuaries, from stately cathedrals, 
and are wafted up before God, as the breath of 
flowers is wafted to us in summer days from 
sweet fields and fragrant gardens. 

There was an old Jewish fancy that Sandal- 
phon, the angel of prayer, stood at the gate of 
heaven, receiving in his hands the supplications 
and the praises of earth, which were changed to 
sweet flowers as he took them. The old, strange 
fancy is not unscriptural. Sincere heart-breath- 
ings of love and faith do indeed rise as the fra- 
grance of sweet flowers into the presence of 

78 



Spices for Christ's Grave 

Christ. When acceptable worship was offered, 
God was said in the Scripture to smell a sweet 
savor. We can honor Christ with our heart's 
true adoration. We can bring the spices and 
ointments of loving homage. Nothing else in 
the world is so precious to Christ as the love 
of his own, when it breathes out from lowly 
hearts and rises up to him. 

There is another beautiful fragment of teach- 
ing gathered out of old rabbinical books, which 
says that there are two orders of angels — the 
angels of service and the angels of praise. The 
angels of praise are of a higher order than the 
others. No one of them praises God twice, 
but having once lifted up his voice in the song 
of heaven he perishes and ceases to be. He 
has perfected his being. His song is the full 
flower and perfect fruit of his life, that for 
which he was created. He has now finished 
his work and his spirit is breathed out in his 
one holy psalm. The fancy may be puerile, 
but there is in it a sweet thought and a deep 
and holy truth. The highest act of which the 
human soul is capable is praise, true worship. 
We are taught to glorify God in whatsoever we 
do. Adoration should rise continually from our 
hearts. We are made to praise our God. The 
unpraising life is yet an unfruitful life; at least, 

79 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

it has not yet borne the sweetest, ripest, and 
best fruit of the Spirit, that which in God's 
sight is most precious of all fruits. In heaven 
all life is praise ; and we come near to the 
heavenly life only in the measure that our life 
here is praise and homage. Thus we have 
in the Epistle to the Hebrews the counsel: 
" Through Christ then let us offer up a sacri- 
fice of praise to God continually, that is, the 
fruit of lips which make confession to his 



name." 



We can bring spices for Christ in service of 
love for him. He has redeemed us. All the 
hopes of our lives come out of his sacrifice for 
us. All our joys come from the cup of his 
sorrow. Our peace comes from his anguish. 
We will wear crowns of life and glory because 
he wore a crown of thorns. As we think of 
what we owe to him, our love must grow deep 
and tender, and what can we do but serve him ? 
It is sweet to think of his love, to receive the 
memorials of his sacrifice, to remember his 
sufferings in saving us. But that is not enough. 
Says Bishop Huntington : " There are two 
feasts, both sacramental ; one at the memorial 
altar of the one sacrifice made once for all ; the 
other wherever Christ and his disciples toil, 
suffer, die for mankind." To the one we come 

80 



Spices for Christ's Grave 

with joy and gladness, as we think of the love 
of our Saviour for us ; but let us not fail in the 
other, in the sacrament of service. These 
women, even in their deep, bewildering, over- 
whelming sorrow, rose up and prepared spices 
and ointments for the dead Christ. Shall we 
be less true and earnest in our love for the 
Christ who was dead but is now alive ? 

There are everywhere those who need our 
service — Christ's little ones, who are hungry 
and thirsty and cold, or who are in spiritual 
need. We are not to wait till they are dead 
and then bring flowers to their coffins. The 
women who brought the spices to our Lord's 
grave had first gone with him in his weary 
journeys, ministering unto him of their sub- 
stance and with their hands. The world is full 
of sore human needs in which Christ himself 
suffers. For these we are to bring our spices 
if we would honor our Master, and we are to 
bring them while the need is pressing. 

It is not money alone, nor chiefly, that we are 
called to bring. Love is better than money. 
Christ himself gave no money, so far as we are 
told ; and yet never was there any other who 
gave so royally as he did. He gave time, 
strength, energy, thought, toil and love. These 
are the spices we must bring. They are fra- 
f 81 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

grant to Christ. Money is needed, but money 
alone will never bless the world. Nothing but 
love will uplift men and save them. Nothing 
but heart's blood will heal hearts. Says George 
MacDonald : " It is not because of God's pov- 
erty that the world is so slowly redeemed. Not 
the most righteous expenditure of money alone 
will save it, but the expenditure of life and soul 
and spirit ; it may be that of nerve and muscle, 
blood and brain. All these our Lord spent, but 
no money." 

We cannot live a Christian life that will 
please Christ without cost to ourselves. It 
never can be an easy thing to be such disciples 
as he would have us to be. An easy, self-in- 
dulgent life never can be a really Christ-like life. 
It was not easy for Christ to redeem the world. 
From the beginning to the end of his earthly 
ministry he poured out his own precious life. 
The people thronged about him with their sins, 
their sorrows and their needs, and virtue went 
out of him continually to heal them, to comfort 
them, to feed their heart-hunger. He utterly 
forgot himself and gave his life and love without 
stint to every one who asked. At last he liter- 
ally gave himself, emptying out his heart's blood 
to become life to dead souls. His sufferings 
were finished when he bowed his head on the 

82 



Spices for Christ's Grave 

cross. But now it is ours to suffer for him. 
Nothing but the giving of life will ever save the 
world. It is ours, then, to perpetuate the self, 
sacrifice of Christ on this earth. Only in so 
far as we do this are we truly bringing spices to 
anoint him. 

" Oh, sin against the love of Christ ! Of all the sins that 

are, 
Methinks that this in heaven must move the greatest 

sorrow far ; 
Must make the soul of Christ to grieve, and angels' eyes 

grow dim 
At sight of all he does for us, and the naught we do for 

him." 

Another way in which we may bring spices 
to honor Christ is in patient endurance of suffer- 
ing. Christian life is not all active. Is is easier 
ofttimes to toil and sacrifice, even to the utter- 
most, than it is to be still and sweet in time of 
pain. Yet the perfume is very fragrant which 
rises from the heart that suffers and yet sings. 
Even amid human joy and gladness it is sweet 
to Christ when the odors of adoration rise from 
the heart. But praise when the life is in the 
midst of trial or sorrow is doubly precious to 
him. The incense in the temple gave out no 
perfume until it was cast upon the fire ; there 
are many lives that do not yield the richest 

83 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

sweetness of love until they are in the fires of 
pain. With such odors Christ is well pleased. 

We should seek to honor Christ in all those 
experiences of our lives which are hard. You 
are watching by the bedside of one of your 
dearest friends. You pray earnestly for the 
sparing of the life that is so precious, but at 
length it seems to be God's will to take it from 
you. Then your duty is submission. Tears 
flow and the heart's pain is very sore, but there 
is no murmuring, no complaining. There is 
trust and peace. In such submission you are 
bringing spices and ointments to Christ. 

A young man made known to his mother his 
decision to go out as a foreign missionary. At 
first, in the sudden surprise, she could not give 
her consent. But she carried her burden to 
Christ, and one morning, as she met her son, 
she threw her arms around him and said, " It is 
all settled. God has given me grace to say to 
you ' Go' ; and I bless him for putting it into your 
heart to go ; I adore him for giving me an Isaac 
to offer on his altar." When the parting came, 
she took off her wedding-ring in the presence 
of his father, and said, " This is the dearest 
thing I possess. I have worn it more than forty 
years ; and now, in the expectation that I shall 
never see you again in this world, I give it, in 

84 



Spices for Christ's Grave 

your father's presence, to you, as a token of our 
united love." That was strewing spices before 
Christ. It was honoring him by the sweet and 
quiet acceptance of his will, when to accept it 
cut into the very heart of human love. 

Gentleness of temper, speech and feeling, 
when one is called to endure insults, wrongs or 
injuries, is another example of the love that 
honors Christ. None of us can live long in the 
thick of life and not sometimes be touched 
rudely, perhaps even cruelly, by others. How 
shall we endure these things that so hurt and 
wound us ? We know what Jesus would do, 
what he did do in like experiences. When he 
was reviled, he reviled not again. There are 
certain flowers that emit no fragrance as they 
grow, but when they are crushed they give out 
perfume which anoints the hand that bruised 
them. Christ's life was ever giving out love 
and kindness. He met reviling with blessing. 
They hung him on the cross till he died, but in 
that cruel death he made redemption for the 
world. When we are wronged, or hurt, or 
treated unkindly, or cruelly, if we would honor 
our blessed Lord, we must endure with sweet 
forgiveness and patience. 



85 



CHAPTER VII. 

The Everlasting Arms. 

O great Heart of God ! whose loving 

Cannot hindered be nor crossed, 
Will not weary, will not even 

In our death itself be lost — 
Love divine ! of such great loving, 

Only mothers know the cost — 
Cost of love, which all love passing, 

Gave a Son to save the lost. 

Saxe Holm. 

Bible words are for all ages. What God 
said to Moses was for him, but it is for us as 
well. The promises are like the stars ; they 
shone down on Abraham, on David, on Jesus ; 
but they shine down on us with the same light. 
Wherever we find a word which God gave to 
any of his children, even thousands of years 
since, we have a right to appropriate it to our- 
selves, just as if it were now spoken directly out 
of the heavens to us. 

This is the true way to read the Bible — to 
let it speak always directly to us. Its words are 
like bubbling springs by life's wayside. For 

86 



The Everlasting Arms 

ages, pilgrims have been drinking from them as 
they passed by. To-day, you and I come weary 
and thirsty, and we stoop and dip up the sweet 
water, as sweet to us as it was to those who first 
drank of it when the spring was opened. Every 
precious word in the Bible is for us, if we are 
God's children. For example, here is a word 
that was first spoken among the blessings where- 
with Moses, the man of God, blessed the chil- 
dren of Israel. But it is present tense : " Un- 
derneath are the everlasting arms ;" so it is true 
always for every believer. 

The Bible is a book of love. The heart of 
God beats in all its chapters. So long as sorrow, 
suffering, weakness and need are in the world, 
so long will the Bible have a welcome among 
men. In a thousand gentle ways does it reveal 
to us the affectionateness and tenderness of God. 
What could be more sweet and winning than 
the thought of the everlasting arms underneath 
God's child ? 

The words suggest the truth of the divine up- 
holding, support and keeping. There is great 
comfort in this view of our relation to God. 
This is a large world. It is full of dangers and 
trials. Circumstances, not under our control, 
would crush us, if we had to contend with 
them in our own strength. None of us live 

87 



Life's Byways and Waysides' 

long until we learn that we cannot take care of 
ourselves. How comforting it is then to have 
such a vision as this — held in the embrace of 
everlasting arms ! We are not fighting our own 
battles, unaided. We are not alone, unsheltered, 
unprotected, in this great world of danger. We 
are kept — kept by the power of God. God's 
omnipotence encircles us and enfolds us. The 
things that are too strong for us, we need not 
fear, for almighty arms are about us. " Under- 
neath are the everlasting arms." Our part, then, 
is simple trust. The picture suggested is that 
of a little child, held in the strong arms of a 
father who is able to withstand all dangers and 
to shelter his child from the same. 

There is a special thought here for the chil- 
dren. A strangely sweet Messianic promise in 
Isaiah reads : " He shall gather the lambs with 
his arm, and carry them in his bosom." The 
lambs cannot walk all the long, rough way, when 
the flock is led out to find water or pasture. 
They sink down in the heat, or on the steep 
hills. Does the shepherd then go on with his 
flock, and leave the fainting lambs to perish ? 
No ; he gathers them with his arms and carries 
them in his bosom. 

One of the most beautiful things in all the 
Bible is the gentleness of God everywhere shown 

88 



The Everlasting Arms 

toward the children. In the old Jewish church 
they were early given to God and the wings of 
the divine shelter were spread over them. The 
most minute rules were given for their instruc- 
tion, that their minds might be filled with holy 
thoughts. In the New Testament, no picture is 
more beautiful than that of Jesus taking infants 
in his arms and blessing them. 

There is a special thought here also for the 
old. At life's two extremes we find weakness, 
defencelessness. Childhood, with its innocence 
and inexperience, cannot care for itself. Then 
old age, with its infirmities, its dimness of eye, 
its trembling limbs, cannot stand before the 
roughness and under the burdens of life. But 
there is a promise which says : " Even to your 
old age I am he ; and even to hoar hairs will I 
carry you : I have made, and I will bear ; even 
I will carry, and will deliver you." The old 
people need not be afraid as their infirmities 
multiply, and as dangers thicken. " Underneath 
are the everlasting arms." 

God comes to us, first, in our infancy, in our 
mothers, who bear us in their arms. All love is 
of God ; mother-love is likest God's of all hu- 
man loves. The old Jewish rabbis used to say, 
" God cannot be everywhere, and therefore he 
made mothers." A mother's arms are under- 

89 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

neath her child in its infancy. Most of us 
know what mother-love is. Perhaps those who 
have lost it know best what it is, for while 
we have it we cannot see all its beauty ; only 
when it is gone, is all its preciousness revealed. 
Our mothers leave us after they have taught us 
in their own life a little of God's tenderness, 
but God himself remains and his arms never 
unclasp. 

After Horace Bushnell's death, they found, 
dimly penciled on a sheet of paper, these 
words : " My mother's loving instinct was from 
God, and God was in her in love to me, first, 
therefore ; which love was deeper than hers 
and more protracted. Long years ago she van- 
ished, but God stays by me still, embracing me 
in my gray hairs as tenderly and carefully as she 
did in my infancy, and giving to me as my joy 
and the principal glory of my life, that he lets 
me know him and helps me, with real confi- 
dence, to call him my Father." 

This thought is very beautiful. Mother-love 
is God's love revealing itself first to the child 
in tender human ways which it can understand. 
It could not then be made to know God's love 
in any other way. If God should appear, his 
glory would terrify the child. By and by the 
mother vanishes, but the lesson has been learned; 

90 



The Everlasting Arms 

the love remains — revealed no longer in the hu- 
man voice and touch and help, yet no less real, 
no less tender, and infinitely deeper and stronger 
and more lasting. The mother does her work 
for her child when she has taught it the love of 
God. Then she goes away. What mother- 
love is to the infant, heart-filling, satisfying, 
God's love is to the motherless old man who 
rests in the clasp of the everlasting arms. 

In this world of peril, the place of the be- 
liever in Christ is in the clasp of God's love. 
In one of the great freshets of the West, when 
the wild waters spread over the valley, bearing 
trees and fences and crops and buildings in their 
floods, some men in a boat saw a baby's cradle 
floating amid the wreckage. Rowing to it, they 
found the baby dry and safe, and sleeping sweetly 
in its warm blankets. So, amid earth's perils and 
wrecks, the feeblest of God's little ones are kept, 
secure and unharmed, in the everlasting arms. 
" Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose 
mind is stayed on thee." 

There are some definite suggestions in the 
figure of an embracing arm. What does an arm 
represent ? One thought is protection. A father 
puts his arm about his child when it is in danger. 
God protects his children. Temptations beset 
us on every hand. Many people think of dying 

91 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

with dread, fearing to meet it. But life has far 
more perils than death. It is easy to die when 
one has lived truly ; it is only entering into joy 
and blessedness. But it is hard to live. At 
every point there are perils. We need protec- 
tion. Here we have it. " The eternal God is 
thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting 
arms." There is an invisible protection. One 
morning the servant of the prophet arose and 
looked out of the window and saw Syrian sol- 
diers encircling the town. " Alas ! my master ; 
how shall we do ?" he cried in alarm. But the 
prophet answered calmly, " Fear not : for they 
that be with us are more than they that be with 
them." The servant looked out again, and lo ! 
the mountain was full of horses and chariots of 
fire, round about Elisha. Inside ihe circle of 
soldiers was a circle of heavenly protection. 
Whatever dangers beset the Christian there is an 
unseen defence. " Underneath are the ever- 
lasting arms." 

Another suggestion is affection. The father's 
arm about the child means love. The child is 
held in the bosom, near the heart. John lay 
on Christ's bosom. The shepherd gathers the 
lambs with his arms and carries them in his 
bosom. This picture of God embracing his 
children with his arm, tells of his love for them. 



The Everlasting Arms 

It tells also of intimacy, closeness of relation. 
The bosom is the children's place. 

There is yet a tenderer phase of the thought 
here, for it is especially in the time of danger 
or suffering that the mother carries the child in 
her arms. She takes it up when it has fallen 
and hurt itself, and comforts it by holding it in 
her arms. When it is sick she bears it thus 
and presses it to her bosom. When the minister 
went to baptize a sick child the mother told him 
it had scarcely been out of her arms for three 
days and nights. This is a peculiar privilege 
of love, therefore, for times of pain or suffering 
— to be held in the arms — and tells of peculiar 
sympathy and tenderness in our heavenly Father 
for his children, when they are in pain or in 
trouble. This is one of the blessings of suffer- 
ing of which we do not always think — that it 
gets us the inner place of divine affection, nearest 
to the Father's heart. God draws us nearest 
when we are in trouble or in pain. 

" As feeble babes that suffer, 

Toss and cry and will not rest, 
Are the ones the tender mother 

Holds the closest, loves the best; 
So when we are weak and wretched, 

By our sins weighed down, distressed, 
Then it is that God's great patience 

Holds us closest, loves us best." 

93 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

The arm is also the symbol of strength. A 
mother's arm may be physically frail, but love 
makes it strong. The arm of God is strong. 
It is omnipotent. It supports the worlds. 
When that divine arm is folded about a feeble 
child, all the power of the universe cannot tear 
it away. We know what it is, even in human 
friendship, to have one on whose arm we can 
lean with confidence. There are some people 
whose mere presence gives us a sense of security. 
We believe in them. In their quiet peace there 
is strength which imparts something of itself to 
all who come near them. Every true human 
friend is more or less a strength to us. Yet the 
finest, securest human strength is only a little 
fragment of the divine strength. This is om- 
nipotence. " In the Lord Jehovah is everlasting 
strength." There is an arm that never can be 
broken, and out of its clasp we never can be 
torn. 

Another thought in the everlasting arm is en- 
durance. There might be protection, affection 
and strength, and yet the blessings might not 
last. We have all these in human love, but 
human arms grow weary, even in love's embrace. 
They cannot long press the child to the bosom. 
Here is a man whose arm is paralyzed and hangs 
powerless by his side. No more can that arm 

94 



The Everlasting Arms 

wind itself about the feebleness which it has so 
long and with such gentleness embraced. But 
the arms of God are everlasting. They shall 
never grow weary. It is everlastingness that is 
the highest blessedness of divine affection and 
care. 

A young man stood by the coffin of his be- 
loved wife, after only one short year of wedded 
happiness. It was very, very sweet, — the clasp 
of that love, but, oh, how brief a time it lasted, 
and how desolate now was the life that had lost 
the precious companionship ! A little baby, two 
weeks old, was left motherless. The mother 
clasped her baby to her breast and drew her 
feeble arms about it in one long, loving embrace ; 
but the child will nevermore have a mother's 
arms about it, for even God cannot twice give a 
mother. So pathetic is human life, with its 
broken affections, its little moments of loving, 
followed by separation, its winding of arms 
around the life only to be torn away in an hour. 
But here is something that lasts, that knows no 
separation, that never unclasps. The arms of 
God are everlasting. Neither death nor life can 
separate. The mountains shall depart, crumble, 
vanish, but God's kindness shall never depart 
from his child. 

There is a very sacred thought in the word 

95 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

" underneath." A father tried to save his child 
in the waves, clasping his arms about the loved 
form. But the arms were too weak and the 
child slipped from them, sank away in the dark 
waters and perished. But the arms of God 
are underneath his children and no one can sink 
out of their embrace. These arms are always 
underneath. The waves of sorrow are very 
deep, but still and forever, underneath the deep- 
est floods are the everlasting arms. We cannot 
sink below them. If we lie down in sickness, 
the everlasting arms are underneath us. If 
human friendships are stripped off and we stand 
alone in our bereavement, still we are not alone. 
He who changes not abides with us. Under- 
neath are the everlasting arms. God remains 
and God suffices. Then, when death comes 
and every earthly thing is gone from beneath us 
and every hand unclasps from ours and every 
face of love fades from our eyes, and we sink 
away into what seems darkness and the shadow 
of death, it will be only into the everlasting 
arms. When Jesus was dying, he said, "Father, 
into thy hands I commend my spirit." He 
found no darkness, no loneliness, — only the ever- 
lasting arms. That is what dying is to every 
believer in Christ — out of the earth's weariness 
into the bosom of Christ. 

96 



The Everlasting Arms 

We need to train ourselves to trust God un- 
waveringly. Yet it is here that so many are 
weak. They are not sure of their trust in 
Christ, and therefore they are easily alarmed. 
Trouble dismays them. Their peace is broken 
with small cares and trials. They have little 
zeal in Christian work. They are easily dis- 
couraged. Their religion is a matter of tem- 
perature, rising and falling like the mercury. 
They begin things and drop them. Their pray- 
ing is fitful. Their good resolves are like summer 
blossoms which fall off when the first frost comes. 

If our minds were stayed on Christ, we should 
have perfect peace. If we realized that the 
eternal God is our refuge, and that the everlast- 
ing arms are truly underneath us, our joy would 
not fluctuate as it does, nor our zeal be so fitful. 
The revival we need is a closer relation with 
Christ, a deeper repose in him, a more trustful 
settling down upon him and upon his atoning 
work. Then nothing could disturb our confi- 
dence, chill our ardor, or hinder our consecra- 
tion. Then in sorrow we should rejoice, in 
temptation we should be victorious, in all life 
we should be strong. 



97 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The Disciple Jesus Loved. 

Our lives they are well worth the living, 

When we lose our small selves in the whole, 

And feel the strong surges of being 

Throb through us, one heart and one soul. 

Eternity bears up each honest endeavor ; 

The life lost for love is life saved, and forever. 

Lucy Larcom. 

One of the most tender pictures in the gospel 
is that which shows us one of Christ's disciples 
leaning on the Master's breast. No name is 
given. We are told that it was the disciple 
" whom Jesus loved." We know then who it 
was. In all the Gospel written by John he does 
not once mention his own name, but the book 
shines from beginning to end with the splendor 
of the person of Christ. He glorified the Mas- 
ter and hid himself. While we insist on writing 
our own name on every little picture of Christ 
we paint, and projecting our own personality 
into all our Christian work, demanding recogni- 
tion, honor and credit for ourselves, we cannot 
worthily honor our Master. Like John we 

98 



The Disciple Jesus Loved 

should write gospels which shall show forth the 
glorious honor of Christ, his sweet beauty, his 
gentle love, in which we shall nowhere inscribe 
so much as our initials. 

There is another thought here, with a lesson. 
This disciple, who nowhere wrote his own name 
on any page of his Gospel, spoke of himself 
again and again by the designation : " The dis- 
ciple whom Jesus loved." He did not say "The 
disciple who loved Jesus." His hope lay not in 
his love for Christ, but in Christ's love for him. 
This is the central principle of divine grace. 
We find it in such words as these : " Not that 
we loved God, but that he loved us ;" " We love 
him, because he first loved us ;" " Ye have not 
chosen me, but I have chosen you." It is never 
our love for Christ that saves us, but always 
Christ's love for us. 

In John leaning on Jesus' bosom, we have a 
type of all true Christian faith. Look at the 
little child lying on the mother's bosom. It has 
no fears, no anxieties, no questionings. It 
nestles in the place of love, feels the strong arm 
encircle it and has not a care. Thus ought we 
to learn to lie in the bosom of Christ. 

No lesson is taught in the Scriptures more 
repeatedly than the duty and privilege of trust- 
ing in Christ. We are taught that we are taken 

99 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

care of in this world, more constantly, kept 
more securely, than the most favored child on 
earth can be taken care of, or kept, in the secur- 
est, most loving home. We are taught to be 
anxious for nothing. There are many needs 
and trials, but " your Father knoweth." There 
are sorrows and losses, but " all things work 
together for good." This great, wild, turbu- 
lent, wicked world seems to be a perilous place 
for Christ's little ones to live in ; but every one 
of them is kept and carried in Christ's bosom. 
It is Jesus himself who tells us that the strongest 
and most honored angels are set to guard the 
children, and that they are always admitted to 
the presence of the Father in heaven. His 
words bring, before us this picture — beside each 
little one of Christ an angel guardianship which 
makes the feeblest of them all as safe, even in 
this world, as if they were already in heaven. 

So in all this world's wild turbulence, amid 
its enmities, its temptations, its trials and sor- 
rows, its wants and dangers, its strifes and con- 
flicts, every child of God may be kept in perfect 
peace. Wherever he is, whatever his circum- 
stances or his condition, he is really lying on the 
bosom of Jesus. We should learn not to be 
afraid in life's wildest storms. Though all 
earthly things are torn from our clasp and all 

100 



The Disciple Jesus Loved 

earthly refuges are swept away, leaving us in the 
midst of dangers unprotected, unsheltered, still 
God is our refuge, and still do we lie in the 
bosom of divine love. No earthly walls can 
ever make such a secure dwelling-place as is the 
bosom of the Almighty. 

When was it that John leaned on the Master's 
bosom ? It was not on one of the bright days 
of John's discipleship. Even then the picture 
would have been beautiful, teaching us its sweet 
lessons of love and communion. But it was 
not at any such time as this. It was on the last 
night of our Lord's life, a time of great darkness, 
of strange, bewildering fear, of sore alarm and 
danger. Never did deeper night hang around 
human hearts on earth than hung that night 
about the hearts of Christ's friends. Yet where 
was John ? Lying on the bosom of Jesus. 

What is the lesson ? There may come to 
any of us, amid the swift and sudden changes 
of time, an hour of darkness, of alarm, of 
sorrow. Where shall we then go ? We cannot 
understand the meaning of the strange events 
that bring such desolation or such bewilderment, 
but for that very reason the best thing we can 
do is to lie down on the bosom of Christ and 
leave in his hands all the strange questions, all 
the perplexity. He knows ; he understands. 

IOI 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

If we turn to him in our times of darkness we 
shall always find light, for it is never dark where 
he is. Even a strong human friend is a refuge 
in time of trouble ; much more, in the secret 
of the presence of Christ, shall we find peace in 
the time of earthly dismay. 

Where was it that John leaned ? It was on 
the bosom of Jesus. He did not merely put his 
hand into his Master's. The hand is the sym- 
bol of guidance, upholding, help. It is good 
to be held by the hand of the strong Son of God. 
John did not lean merely on the arm of Christ. 
The arm means strength, upbearing, protection, 
security. It is a blessed comfort to have the 
everlasting arm underneath us. John leaned 
on the Lord's bosom. He lay close to his 
heart. The bosom is the place of shelter. It 
is also the place of love. The Good Shepherd 
carries the lambs in his bosom. It is a great 
comfort to have the power of Christ for our 
help, our security, our refuge ; but it is infinitely 
better to have the love of Christ for our hiding- 
place, our shelter. To lie on the bosom of 
Jesus is to be wrapped in the precious folds 
of love. A mother's bosom is for her child the 
softest place in all this world ; but the bosom 
of Jesus is infinitely softer and warmer. 

What did John do ? He leaned on Jesus' 

I02, 



The Disciple Jesus Loved 

bosom. The word " leaned" is very suggestive. 
Perhaps we miss something of the full, rich 
meaning of our privilege, in this regard, as 
believers in Christ. We understand that we 
may cast our burdens on Christ, that the loads 
which are too heavy for us to carry he will help 
us carry. We speak of bearing Christ's yoke, 
and we like to think that he walks beside us and 
helps us, as our divine yoke-fellow. Then we 
go further and think of him bearing our sins. 
The load that would sink our souls to the depths 
of eternal despair, we may lay on Jesus, the 
Lamb of God. 

But even this is not all that is implied in 
leaning upon Jesus' bosom. John left all his 
care in his Master's hands that night. The 
hopes that seemed crushed now — his bitter dis- 
appointment — he laid down in the bosom of 
heavenly love. But as we look at the picture 
we see that the beloved disciple leaned his own 
weight upon Jesus — not only the burden of his 
sorrow, his perplexity, and his loss did he Jay 
on Jesus — but himself. A friend was moving 
his library, and his little boy was helping 
him carry his books upstairs. The child had 
gathered his arms fall and had gone off proudly 
with his load. Presently, however, the father 
heard a call for help. The little fellow had 

103 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

gotten half-way up the stairs when the burden 
proved too heavy, and he sank down. He 
wanted his father to come and take part of the 
books. The father heard the call, and, coming 
up the stairs, he lifted and carried both the boy 
and his load. Thus it is that Christ carries us 
and all our burdens. There is nothing in all 
our life that he does not assume when he be- 
comes our friend. He takes our sins and puts 
them away. He takes our wicked heart and 
changes it. He takes our sinful life and restores 
it. He takes our mistakes and sins and corrects 
them. He takes into his hand the guidance of 
our life, the ordering of our steps, the shaping 
of our circumstances, the ruling and overruling 
of the events of our days, our deliverance in 
temptation. When we give ourselves to Christ, 
we really have nothing whatever to do with our 
own life, but our simple duty, day by day, hour 
by hour. " Seek ye first the kingdom of God 
and his righteousness" is our one duty, and 
"all these things shall be added unto you" is 
the divine part. 

This picture suggests to us the secret of a 
beautiful life. Artists in their pictures paint 
John the most like Jesus of any of the apostles. 
There is no doubt that he was the most beloved 
of all because he was the most lovable of all. 

104 



The Disciple Jesus Loved 

His Gospel and Epistles breathe the spirit of a 
most sweet and gentle character. Yet there are 
indications that it was not always so ; that origi- 
nally he was fiery, vehement, resentful. Once 
he desired to call down fire from heaven to burn 
up a village and destroy its inhabitants because 
they had refused to entertain Jesus. This was 
not the spirit of love which we find in him 
later. He had to learn the lesson of love. 

Dr. Culross compares the character of John, 
in its mellow ripeness, to an ancient, extinct 
volcano. Where once the crater yawned, there 
is now a verdurous, cup-like hollow in the 
mountain summit. Where once the fierce fire 
burned, lies a still, clear pool of water, looking 
up like an eye to the beautiful heavens above, 
its banks covered with sweet flowers. " It is 
an apt parable of this man. Naturally and 
originally volcanic, capable of profoundest pas- 
sion and daring, he is new-made by grace, till, 
in his old age, he stands out in calm grandeur 
of character and depth and largeness of soul, 
with all the gentlenesses and graces of Christ 
adorning him — a man, as I imagine him to 
myself, with a face so noble that kings might do 
him homage, and so sweet that little children 
would run to him for his blessing." 

What was it that wrought this transformation 

105 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

in John ? What was it that subdued the spirit 
of resentment in him to the gentleness of love ? 
What was it that made the " son of thunder" 
into the apostle of Christly affectionateness ? 
It was lying upon the Master's bosom that did 
it. The lump of common clay lay on the per- 
fumed rose and the sweetness of the rose entered 
into it, permeating it with its own fragrance. 

There is room on that same bosom of eternal 
love for all who will claim the place. How can 
we find the place? We are in Christ's bosom 
when we have a confiding trust in him, when 
we believe in his love for us, and let it flow 
about us in all its tenderness, loving him in 
return. We rest in that bosom when we grow 
intimate with Jesus, cultivating close fellowship 
and companionship, forming with him a real heart 
to heart friendship, until we know no other friend 
so well, and love no other friend so much. 
We may come into this holy privilege, living 
always near the heart of Christ. Then the 
effect on our life of such habitual reposing on 
him will be the transformation of our character 
into the gentle beauty of holy love. Lying on 
the bosom of Christ, we shall grow like Christ. 
His life and love shall flow into our heart and 
saturate all our being, filling us with the very 
life of Christ himself. 

106 



The Disciple Jesus Loved 

There is another look at this picture which 
we must take before we turn away from it. 
This time it gives us a glimpse of what heaven 
will be. The ancient Jews called the home of 
the blessed dead, Abraham's bosom. This was 
because Abraham was the father of the Jewish 
people, and the children were all gathered into 
the father's bosom. In a far sweeter, truer 
sense may we speak of heaven as the bosom of 
Christ. It is the place of perfect communion. 
Nothing will ever separate the believer from 
his Saviour in that home of glory. 

We see, too, what death is to a Christian — 
only going up closer in the bosom in which 
he has lain here on earth. Should any one 
be afraid to creep up into this gentle place ? 
Stephen, dying, saw Jesus, and said, " Lord 
Jesus, receive my spirit." St. Paul said, " To 
me to die is gain." Dying is gain to a Christian 
because it is departing to be with Christ. Let 
us not dread to leave this world, if we are 
indeed Christ's. It will be only changing dim 
faith for sight, the Friend whom not having seen 
we love, into face to face with him forever. 

There is room on that bosom for many more. 
It is never full, for the arms of Christ are 
stretched out to take in the whole world. No 
one is shut out. 

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Life's Byways and Waysides 

" No father's house is full, 
E'en though there seems no resting-place for more; 
Forgiving arms and doors do open wide 
If one repentant child implore 
Outside. 

No mother's heart is full, 
Unless it be with longing, burning, wild 
Heart-throbbings that no cheerful face can hide, 

The wish to clasp her sinning child 
Outside." 

And Christ's bosom is never full. There is 
room for the penitent ; room for the wanderer 
who wants to return ; room for the sorrowing 
who seek soothing and comfort ; room for the 
old in their feebleness ; room for the children, 
room for all. 



iog 



CHAPTER IX. 

Great in -God's Sight. 

Earth needs the true. 
The soul whose loyal purpose is its king, 
Whose every thought like solid gold doth ring, 
Whose diamond purity shows not a flaw, 
Whose liberty exults in serving law, 
Which knows no yoke of servile hope or fear, 
In which no sordid greed doth e'er appear, 
Which is not warped by vanity or pride, 
Which, loving God, seeks no reward beside. 
To show God's mind, earth needs the true. 

Llewellyn J. Evans. 

Few men have had higher honor than that 
which was conferred upon John the Baptist, in 
Christ's estimate of him. " Among them that 
are born of woman there hath not arisen a 
greater than John the Baptist," were the strong 
words that fell from the lips of the Master. 
It was a great thing to have our Lord speak such 
praise. He knew what was in men, and he 
never spoke an insincere word. Human esti- 
mates of greatness are ofttimes defective, some- 
times false. Men see only the outward appear- 

109 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

ance. Many people are not so great as they 
seem to be. They practice tricks which de- 
ceive the world. They pass for great while 
in reality they are very small. Strip off their 
gaudy tinsel, and but little would be left. 

Other people, however, are greater than they 
seem. They lack the popular qualities which 
attract attention and win applause. Yet they 
are great in their souls — great in intellectual 
qualities, in heart power, in the elements of 
true manhood, in moral strength. But there is 
an eye that sees all things as they are. It 
pierces all thin disguises, penetrates to the core 
of things, and discerns the poor shrivelled soul 
that is hidden beneath the external glitter. On 
the other hand, it sees in the lowly life, which 
gets but little praise of men, whose outer form 
is homely and plain, the true worth, the quali- 
ties which are excellent, the character which 
bears the marks of divinity. 

It is well that we sometimes stop to think 
how we appear to God — what God thinks of us. 
Goethe says : " There is something in every 
man's heart, which, if we could know, would 
make us hate him." Perhaps this is true, but 
it is true also that there is something in every 
man, in even the most repulsive man, which, if 
we could know, would make us love him. As 

no 



Great in God's Sight 

God sees us, we are both worse and better than 
we seem to any other eyes in all the world. 
He sees the hidden faults and the secret stains ; 
he sees also the feeble yearnings which at length 
will be splendid spiritual qualities. 

The artist's picture is born in his brain. At 
first it is only a vision, but by and by it stands 
on the canvas and thousands admire it. There 
are in every true heart noble dreams of beauti- 
ful character — only dreams yet, faint visions, 
shadowy aspirations and longings. These will 
all at length be realized, and will stand on the 
canvas of the life as attainments. I love to 
think of this side of the lives of my fellows — 
not the poor, stained fragments of being which 
my eyes now see, but what they will be when 
God's work of grace in them is finished. We 
are all greater in the possibilities of our lives 
than we dream of. 

What were some of the elements in John 
which led Jesus to speak this wonderful com- 
mendation of him ? It is well that we should 
know, for a character so highly praised of the 
Christ we may well study as a pattern for our 
imitation. 

John was great in his birth. A singular glory 
hung over his cradle. An angel came to the 
good priest as he ministered at the altar, an- 

iii 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

nouncing to him that a child should be born in 
his home, whom he should call John, who should 
bring to his father joy and gladness. " He 
shall be great in the sight of the Lord," said 
the angel. But few men have been thus honored 
before their birth by angelic pre-announcement 
of their greatness. 

John was great also in his place among the 
prophets. He was the immediate forerunner 
of Christ. There was a long succession of 
holy men before John, all of whom foretold the 
Messiah. Abraham saw his day, but it was 
then two thousand years ofF. Moses foretold 
the coming of Christ, as that greater prophet 
like unto him, whom the Lord should send. 
David sang of the glory of his greater Son, who 
should sit upon his throne forever. Isaiah ut- 
tered sublime prophecies of the Messiah who 
should come to bring deliverance ; whose name 
should be Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty 
God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of 
Peace; who should bear his people's sins and 
carry their sorrows, by whose stripes they should 
be healed. Zechariah foretold the place of the 
Messiah's birth, — the little town of Bethlehem, 
— which should be made great in the land, 
henceforth, by this wonderful event. Malachi, 
last of the line of prophets before John, spoke 

112 



Great in God's Sight 

of the Lord coming suddenly to his temple, and 
sitting as a refiner and purifier of silver. 

All of these were great men, highly honored 
in the line of the heralds and prophets of Mes- 
siah. But John was greater than any of them, 
because he was the immediate forerunner of the 
Christ. It was his privilege to go into the wil- 
derness and to call the people to prepare for the 
appearance of the Messiah, who even then was 
among them, though unrecognized, and who 
was about to make himself known to them. It 
was his privilege to go close before the Mes- 
siah's face, and make ready the path for his feet. 
It was his privilege, one wonderful day, beside 
the Jordan, to baptize a young man, on whom 
the Holy Spirit then descended in bodily form, 
like a dove, over whom the heavens were opened, 
revealing a glimpse of glory, and of whom a 
divine voice declared, " This is my beloved 
Son, in whom I am well pleased." It was 
John's privilege to introduce the Messiah to the 
people as the Lamb of God, and to testify to 
all men concerning his glory and greatness. 
Thus John held the highest place in the glorious 
line of prophets. He was the morning star 
which heralded the sun. 

John was great also as a preacher. His train- 
ing was peculiar. He did not attend the schools 

H 113 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

as other teachers did. He went away into the 
wilderness. He lived as a hermit. He wore a 
sheepskin mantle. His hair and beard were 
never cut, for he was a Nazarite. He ate for 
his food locusts and wild honey. Thus he lived 
in the desert, apart from men. God was his 
only teacher. In his heart the great truths of 
divine teaching burned. At length he came forth 
from his seclusion and began to preach. For 
four hundred years, since the days of Malachi, 
no prophet's voice had been heard speaking to 
men from God. The people were now startled 
in their spiritual slumber by the unwonted tones 
which fell upon their ears. No man had ever 
spoken as this strange man from the desert spoke. 
He told them of their sins. He said the Mes- 
siah was coming, and that he was sent to prepare 
the way before him. He called them to repent, 
to put away the evil out of their lives, to turn 
their hearts to God for forgiveness, that they 
might be ready to receive their coming King. 

John's public work was short. The time was 
counted in months, but he crowded into the 
brief period an intensity of life and utterance 
that changed the moral history of the world. 
Life is not measured by the number of its years, 
but by what one puts into the years. One day 
of intense living, full of the Holy Spirit, burn- 

114 



Great in God's Sight 

ing with love, is better than a whole year of 
such mild, indolent, lukewarm living as too 
many of us give to the world. A young man 
may die at three and thirty, as John did, as also 
did Jesus, and yet leave impressions on the 
world's life which shall make all the human 
story of after years mean more. 

John was great also as a man. He was great 
intellectually. His rugged strength made him 
tower majestically above the men of his day. 
To be a great preacher, one must first be 
a great man, great in all the elements which 
belong to true manliness. Words amount to 
little unless there is a noble soul behind them. 
It is character that gives force to what a man 
says. It is character that impresses the world. 
It is what a man is that makes his atmosphere, 
that breathes out in that mysterious impartation 
of life which we call influence. John's char- 
acter was great. 

Look at his courage. He stood before the 
throngs, in which were the most learned and 
the most powerful of his people, and told them 
of their sins. He did not do it, either, in deli- 
cate and decorous phrases, but in baldest, plainest 
speech. A little later, when Herod had com- 
mitted a grievous offence against purity and against 
the sacredness of marriage and the home, it was 

115 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

John who met him with denunciation of his 
sin. John knew well what he was doing. He 
knew the bad heart of Herod and the wicked 
fury of the woman who was sharer in Herod's 
sin. But he faltered not in his faithfulness as 
a preacher of truth. It cost him sorely. He 
was cast into a dungeon in the " Black Fortress," 
where he lay in gloom and chains. By and by 
his life was taken from him to gratify the ven- 
geance of the woman whose dishonor he had 
so faithfully condemned. 

All this was the cost and consequence of his 
fidelity. But he was never sorry for being fear- 
less and true. He never regretted that he had 
lifted up his voice for righteousness. It is by 
such fidelities that the cause of truth is advanced 
in the world. No matter that they cost so 
much, that noble lives perish in being true ; the 
result is worth the price paid. It seemed, in- 
deed, a fearful price to pay — the quenching of 
this great light, the brutal slaughter of this 
noble man, the cutting off of this useful life 
in its very prime, the untimely ending of this 
worthy career in blood — all as the consequence 
of one faithful word spoken against sin, — spoken 
in vain, too, as it seemed, for apparently the 
reproof did no good. " What a waste !" we are 
apt to say. No, it was not a waste. Herod 

116 



Great in God's Sight 

and Herodias lived on in their sinful relation as 
if John had not spoken. But John's testimony- 
made the moral atmosphere of the world a little 
purer. The shedding of John's blood in the 
dungeon enriched the soil of the earth. John's 
faithful testimony was not lost, but became part 
of the great spiritual force of the world. John's 
life was not wasted, though ending in such a 
tragic way ; his spirit lives in the world's life ; 
his soul is marching on. 

Another fine thing in John's character was his 
utter self-forgetfulness. In his great popularity 
the people began to think that he was the Messiah. 
They came to him, asking him if he were not. 
A weak and unscrupulous man would have ac- 
cepted the homage. But John instantly put it 
away. " Oh, no," he said ; " I am not the 
Christ. I am only a voice crying in the wil- 
derness, ' Make straight the way of the Lord.' " 
Thus he hid himself out of sight and put honor 
upon the Messiah who was to come. 

All through his ministry it was the same. 
When Jesus came and began to preach, the 
crowds melted away from about John and 
flocked to hear the Galilean peasant, whose 
gracious words were such music in their ears. 
Was it easy for John to bear this waning of his 
own power and popularity, in the more winning 

117 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

attractiveness of the new preacher ? It was very 
hard, but John's noble spirit endured the test. 
When his disciples said to him, " Teacher, he 
to whom thou barest witness is preaching, and 
all the people are going after him," his answer 
was most beautiful : Ye yourselves remember 
that I said, " I am not the Christ, but only one 
sent before him. I am the bridegroom's friend. 
My joy is fulfilled in seeing him honored. He 
must increase, but I must decrease." 

It is hard, when one has been first, to take a 
second place. It is hard, when one has been 
the centre of attraction for a time in any circle, 
and when another comes in and takes the favored 
place, for the former to yield gracefully and keep 
sweet. It is hard, when one has led for a time 
in some important work, to step down into ob- 
scurity and yet continue to work there as faith- 
fully and earnestly as before, while another fills 
the old place. Few tests of character are sorer 
than this. The man who will do his work 
only when he is in a prominent position, and 
who will sulk if asked to work in an obscure 
place, lacks one element of the finest manliness. 

It has been said that the hardest instrument to 
play in all the orchestra is the second violin. 
Yet somebody must play it, and he must be a 
good player, too. The hardest places to fill in 

118 



Great in God's Sight 

all the relations of life are the second places ; 
yet they must be filled, and well filled, too, with 
those who can do beautiful work. Blessed are 
those who will do their duty and do it well and 
sweetly wherever they may be appointed to 
stand. We are working for God's eye, and the 
most conspicuous workers, as he sees them, are 
those who do their part the most conscientiously 
and the most cheerfully, even without praise 
or recognition. Jesus said that those who serve 
the best are greatest in his kingdom. 

Having spoken with such unstinted praise of 
John, Jesus said further, " Yet he that is but 
little in the kingdom of heaven is greater than 
he." Evidently, he did not mean that in all the 
elements of greatness the weakest Christian is 
superior to the Baptist. He was speaking of 
the two dispensations. John was greatest in the 
old. But Christ, by his life, teachings, death 
and resurrection, lifted humanity to a loftier 
height than it had ever held before. He re- 
vealed the love of God, the fatherhood of God, 
and the privilege of divine childship, for every 
penitent soul. The least in the kingdom of 
heaven is sharer in all heaven's blessedness. 
We do not realize what exaltation the grace of 
Christ brings to a Christian. Wonderful are 
the possibilities of life in Christ. If we only 

119 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

understood how great we may become, it would 
fire our souls with zeal and earnestness and impel 
us to grandest, loftiest flights. 

A recent writer puts solemn truths in the 
form of a dream. He dreamed that he died 
and a spirit guide led him toward the bar of 
God. He saw before him what seemed the 
form of a man, having marvelous beauty, grace 
and strength. In every feature, nobleness and 
worth were traced. His guide asked him who 
he thought it was. "Jesus," he answered, 
almost overcome with awe. '* No," said the 
guide; "not Jesus, but thyself." "Myself!" 
he replied, thinking his guide was only trifling. 
" Yes," said the guide, " thyself; what thou 
mightest have been, if thou hadst always obeyed 
the still small voice." 

Then he saw spread out before him a pano- 
rama of his life, showing him every point at 
which he had chosen the wrong way. He saw 
what he had missed and how he had missed it. 
Here was what he might have been. 

The next night he dreamed again. Again he 
was led into the divine presence and a form 
appeared, but oh, how different from the one 
he had seen the night before ! All that was 
evil seemed to live in the features. He hated 
and loathed the wretch as his enemy. " Who 

1 20 



Great in God's Sight 

is it i" asked the guide. " Satan," he answered 
— " Satan, the father of lies, the prince of all 
evil." " Nay," cried the guide ; " it is thy- 
self." He was indignant. " Yes ; it is thyself 
— what thou shalt be, that toward which thou 
art tending." Again all his life swept before 
him and he saw the end, the culmination, the 
ripeness, of all the selfish and wrong choices he 
had made, of all the bad feelings, appetites and 
passions he had cherished. It was a vision of 
what a sinful life will come to at the last. 

Before each human life are these two same 
possibilities, as far apart as heaven and hell. In 
Christ we may grow into all strength, nobleness 
and beauty ; if we live apart from Christ, we 
shall see ourselves at last hideous in all sin's 
awful fruitage: saint, wearing Christ's image, 
all the nobleness of true manhood, all the 
beauty of holiness ; or demon, bearing the out- 
working of all vileness and unholiness. 

Behold that form of radiant loveliness that 
rises before you as you think of Jesus. All 
nobleness is in the features. All manly qual- 
ities shine in the character. How beautiful, 
how radiant is the life ! Who is it ? It is 
yourself — what you may become in Jesus Christ. 



121 



CHAPTER X. 
Possibilities of Friendship. 

We live together years and years, 

And leave unsounded still 
Each other's springs of hopes and fears, 

Each other's depths of will ; 
We live together day by day, 

And some chance look or tone 
Lights up with instantaneous ray 

An inner world unknown. ' 

Houghton. 

The subject of friendship never wears out. 
Human hearts are the same in all ages. We 
all need love. There is a story of a captive in 
the Bastile, long immured in a lonely dungeon, 
whose heart, craving friendship in some form, 
found it in a little spider which was in his cell. 
Even Jesus felt the need of human friendship, 
his heart reaching out for sympathy and com- 
panionship. There is no one who does not 
need friends. The busier one is, the more one 
is living for others, the richer, deeper and 
purer one's life is, the more does one need a 
friend, or a few friends, in whose shelter to rest, 

122 



Possibilities of Friendship 

from whose sympathy to draw strength and 
renewal. Friendship is one of the earliest 
cravings of the new-born life, and one of the 
latest to die ; infancy and old age alike hunger 
for love. 

" I watched a youth and maiden by the sea : 

The white foam dashed upon the rocks in spray, 
As sportive as fair children at their play : 

It kissed her cheek and brow, from care as free 

As birds in summer : smiling tenderly, 
He took her hand in his in manly way. 
The picture lingered with me many a day; 

* Youth is the time of love,' it said to me. 

I watched them later, when the youth had grown 
To man's estate, and little ones were led 

By gentle hands. Her face with gladness shone. 
' Ah ! manhood is the time to love,' I said. 

Sweet love ! without thee age itself were lone ; 
Life and eternity by love are wed." 

It is important that the friends we have shall 
be true and worthy. It is better to live in 
solitariness all one's days than to take into one's 
life a friend who is not good, whose influence 
will mar and soil one's purity of soul. 

There are many helpful hints in the beautiful 
friendship of Jonathan for David for those who 
are choosing friends. 

It was a disinterested friendship. Jonathan 

123 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

was the king's son. What could the shepherd- 
boy do for the prince ? What advantage could 
come to Jonathan from having this country lad 
for a friend ? Jonathan was rich, high in rank, 
and older than David. There was no possible 
benefit that might come to him from having the 
ruddy youth for a friend. Had it been David 
who desired to make Jonathan his friend, it 
would not have seemed such a disinterested af- 
fection, for the king's son might be of great 
advantage to the ambitious shepherd-boy. As 
it was, however, the friendship was entirely 
unselfish and disinterested. Jonathan loved 
David for David's own sake. His eyes saw in 
the blushing lad beauty, nobleness, excellency 
of character, true bravery of soul, the elements 
of fine manhood, the germs of all those traits 
which, later in the story, shine out in such 
splendor in David. 

Disinterestedness is a quality of all true friend- 
ship. There are many people who will be your 
friends when they see some advantage in it for 
themselves. They cling to you with intense 
devotion when you can give them pleasure, help 
them toward the achieving of their ambition, or 
be of advantage to them in some way. This is 
the world's friendship. It seeks, not you, but 
yours. It is very sad to see one deceived by 

124 



Possibilities of Friendship 

such friendship, giving the trusting love and 
confidence of a loyal heart into the icy clutches 
of such unworthy selfishness. 

If you would have a friendship that will 
never fail you, that will be true through all dark 
hours, that will come only the nearer to you in 
adversity, seek for a friend who cares for you 
for yourself, whose friendship is disinterested 
and unselfish. 

Jonathan's friendship was faithful. It would 
not have seemed strange that in the moment of 
David's victory Jonathan admired him and was 
drawn to him. Generous natures are always 
charmed by noble deeds in others. Many sud- 
den friendships, however, are short-lived. Many 
young people form attachments of this sort, 
which unclasp amid the toils, struggles, ambi- 
tions, hardships and trials of real life. It was 
the glory of Jonathan's friendship for David 
that it stood the test of most trying experiences. 
It soon became apparent that David was the 
nation's idol. The people sang : 

" Saul hath slain his thousands 
And David his ten thousands." 

It was this that turned Saul's friendship for 
David to bitter hate. But Jonathan's friendship 
stood the test. He was willing to see his friend 

125 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

exalted to honor though that honor eclipsed 
himself. Soon Jonathan knew that the friend 
he had taken to his heart was to sit on the 
throne that was his by right of succession. Yet 
even this did not affect the friendship of his 
loyal heart. He loved David so that he rejoiced 
in David's exaltation over himself. " Thou 
shalt be king, and I shall be next unto thee," 
he said, with loving pride. He knew that 
David had never sought the crown, but that it 
was by God's will that it was to be his ; and he 
bowed in submission and was glad. The world 
has never shown anything, even in friendship, 
finer than this. 

There was another test. Enemies of David 
sought by misrepresentation and calumnies to 
destroy Jonathan's regard for him. Saul him- 
self darkly hinted that there was treachery in 
David toward Jonathan. Yet even these calum- 
nies did not start in Jonathan's mind a shadow 
of doubt concerning David. On the other 
hand, he bravely defended his friend in his 
absence. He sought to conciliate his father, 
assuring him of David's sincerity, recounting 
his noble deeds. He even imperilled his own 
life # in pleading with his father for his friend. 
Thus in all its testings Jonathan's friendship was 
proved constant. 

126 



Possibilities of Friendship 

Jonathan's friendship was helpful. There is 
friendship that is fine in sentiment, lavish in 
compliment, profuse in words, but that never 
proves its sincerity by real helpfulness. Jona- 
than showed his friendship for David in many 
practical ways. He defended him in his absence. 
He secured his escape from Saul's plot. He 
helped him in his lonely exile, by faithfulness, 
by encouragement, by personal kindness. 

Helpfulness belongs to all true friendship. 
Its central desire is not to get, but to give ; not 
to be ministered unto, but to minister. Friend- 
ship can be formed on no other basis. Ordinarily 
it is in little ways that friendship's richest help 
is given. There may come times when it will 
cost most deeply to be a friend. Misfortune 
knows no rank, and the most prosperous may 
be in straits through which only munificent help 
can carry them, and then friendship must not 
fail, whatever the cost may be. For the greater 
part, however, the help we need from our 
friends is not money, not anything that costs 
much. We are not suitors for charity. We 
do not want our friends to carry our burdens for 
us, unless we are actually fainting under them. 
No noble person wants a friend to do for him 
that which he can do for himself. 

But we all need and crave sympathy, human 

127 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

kindness, cheer, fellowship, as we go along life's 
dusty road. This small coin of love is the 
brightener of every life that is blessed by a rich 
friendship. 

Another thing about this friendship was that 
it had a religious basis. Both of these men 
loved God, and believed in him. Three dif- 
ferent times they made solemn covenant to- 
gether, appealing to God to ratify their covenant. 
Friendships should always be knit with a three- 
fold cord — two human hearts and God. True 
friendship binds hearts and lives together in 
virtue, in purity, in honesty, in godliness. 
When a professed friend wants you to join him 
in sin, flee from him. Young people should 
seek as their friends those who love God and 
follow Christ, those whom they will want 
beside them when they are dying. We should 
choose friends whom we can take into every 
part of our life, into every closest communion, 
into every holy joy, into all consecration and 
service, into every hope, and between whom 
and us there shall never be a point at which we 
shall not be in sympathy. We are too apt to 
let our friendships be dependent on the drift of 
life about us. We keep open door, like the 
street-car, to give hospitality to all who come. 
We do not always choose our friends. This is 

iz8 



Possibilities of Friendship 

not dealing justly with ourselves. We must be 
courteous to every one we meet ; but we may 
not make every neighbor a friend. Jesus prayed 
all night before he chose his twelve. We 
should never make a friendship over which we 
have not prayed. We ought to accept only the 
friendships that will bring blessing to our life, 
that will enrich our character, that will stimulate 
us to better and holier things, that will weave 
threads of silver and gold into our web of life, 
and whose every influence upon us will be a 
lasting benediction. 

" Thy friend will come to thee unsought; 
With nothing can his love be bought ; 
His soul thine own will know at sight ; 
With him thy heart can speak outright. 
Greet him nobly ; love him well ; 
Show him where thy best thoughts dwell ; 
Trust him greatly and for aye : 
A true friend comes but once thy way." 

There is a holy, invigorating, stimulating in- 
fluence, like an atmosphere, that belongs to every 
true friendship. It is harder to do wrong and 
easier to do right, when we have a friend who 
believes in us and expects beautiful things of us. 
A pure, rich friendship is like warm spring sun- 
shine, as its glances fall upon our life. What- 
ever possibilities of good there are in our life 
i 129 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

are encouraged and drawn out by the nourishing 
warmth of a rich and worthy friendship. There 
are noble and beautiful lives which owe all they 
are to a pure, inspiring friendship. Comrades 
discovered a picture of a fair face in the pocket 
of a young soldier, whom they found dead on 
the front line of the advance. Then they knew 
the secret of his bravery. 

" What is the secret of your life ?" asked 
Mrs. Browning of Charles Kingsley. " Tell 
me, that I may make mine beautiful, too." His 
reply was, " I had a friend." She who came 
into his life in early youth as wife and friend, 
by the impact of her noble soul on his, inspired 
and built up in him a manhood than which none 
more royal ever grew on this earth. Let the 
woman who accepts the holy place of wife 
learn what power is hers, what she may do for 
the man who has chosen her from among all 
women, if only she rises to the full dignity and 
glory of her privilege. 

True friendship is immortal. The friend 
may go away out of your sight, but does not, 
cannot, go out of your life. You may be sepa- 
rated by continents or by oceans, but your 
friend is with you so long as loyal affection 
dwells in your heart. Every memory of him 
is precious, and stirs its own proper emotion. 

13° 



Possibilities of Friendship 

Even death does not take him out of your life. 
It is a strange power that death has. It sweeps 
away the faults and blemishes and brings out the 
shy beauties, the half-forgotten tendernesses, the 
hitherto unrecognized loveliness, and we see our 
friend now at his best, his true self, no longer 
in the dim light of human passion, but in the 
warm glow of love. Many a time our friends 
are more to us when they have gone from us 
into heaven than ever they were when they 
walked with us in the midst of earth's strifes, 
competitions, envyings and rivalries. Their 
influence over us abides perpetually. The im- 
pressions they made upon us when they were 
with us stay for ever as part of our character. 
Everything they ever touched is sacred. 

" Where thou hast touched, O wondrous death! 
Where thou hast come between, 
Lo, there forever perisheth 
The common and the mean. 

No little flaw or trivial speck 

Doth any more appear, 
And cannot, from this time, to fleck 

Love's perfect image clear. 

Clear stands love's perfect image now, 

And shall do evermore ; 
And we in awe and wonder bow 

The glorified before." 

131 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

One tells how he saw in the private treasury 
of Windsor Castle a great gold peacock sparkling 
with rubies, emeralds and diamonds, which had 
been brought away from some rajah's palace ; 
and close by it a common quill pen and a bit of 
serge discolored. The pen had signed some 
important treaty ; the bit of serge was the frag- 
ment of a flag that had waved over some hard- 
fought field. The two together were worth a 
half-penny, but they held their ground beside 
the jewels ; for they meant successful effort and 
heroic devotion for the interests of the kingdom, 
and therefore were laid up in the treasure-house 
of royalty. So it is with the holy and sacred 
mementos of friendship. You may have things 
of great money value in your house ; but if there 
is an old letter, a book, or a flower which the 
dead hand plucked, or some most trifling thing 
that belonged to the friend now in heaven, it is 
easy to tell what, in the list of your treasures, 
you prize most highly. 

We can never lose a friend. His touches on 
our life will never fade out. His words will 
stay always in our heart. The impressions he 
made upon us will never be effaced. When he 
came into our life and the friendship grew up 
between him and us, the threads of his being 
became inextricably entangled with the threads 

132 



Possibilities of Friendship 

of our being, and they never more can be dis- 
entangled. The bonds of friendship are inalien- 
able. Lucy Larcom writes : 

What is the best a friend can be 

To any soul, to you or me ? 

Not only shelter, comfort, rest — 

Inmost refreshment unexpressed j 

Not only a beloved guide 

To tread life's labyrinth at our side, 

Or with love's torch lead on before} 

Though these be much, there yet is more. 

The best friend is an atmosphere 
Warm with all inspirations dear, 
Wherein we breathe the large, free breath 
Of life that hath no taint of death. 
Our friend is an unconscious part 
Of every true beat of our heart j 
A strength, a growth, whence we derive 
God's health, that keeps the world alive. 

The best friend is horizon, too, 

Lifting unseen things into view, 

And widening every petty claim 

Till lost in some sublimer aim ; 

Blending all barriers in the great 

Infinities that round us wait. 

Friendship is an eternity 

Where soul with soul walks, heavenly free. 

Can friend lose friend ? Believe it not. 
The tissue whereof life is wrought, 

133 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

Weaving the separate into one, 
Nor end hath, nor beginning ; spun 
From subtle threads of destiny, 
Finer than thought of man can see. 
God takes not back his gifts divine j 
While thy soul lives, thy friend is thine. 

If but one friend have crossed thy way, 
Once only, in thy mortal dayj 
If only once life's best surprise 
Have opened on thy human eyes, 
Ingrate thou wert, indeed, if thou 
Didst not in that rare presence bow ; 
And on earth's holy ground, unshod, 
Speak softlier the dear name of God. 



'34 



CHAPTER XI. 
Praying for Our Friends. 

" Yes, pray for whom thou lovestj if uncounted wealth 

were thine, 
The treasures of the boundless deep, the riches of the 

mine, 
Thou couldst not to thy cherished friends a gift so dear 

impart 
As the earnest benediction of a deeply prayerful heart." 

It is good to pray for one's friends. Indeed, 
the friendship that does not pray* is lacking in 
one of its most sacred elements. We have also 
a good index of the character of the friendship 
in the things that one asks for one's friends. 
To seek for them only earthly blessings is to 
miss friendship's highest privilege, which is to 
call down heaven's benedictions upon them. 

It is interesting to study St. Paul's prayers for 
his friends. His prayer for the Philippians may 
be taken as an example. He does not ask that 
they may have more of this world's good things, 
that they may be prospered in business, but he 
asks for them those things that will enrich their 
spiritual life and character. 

i35 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

He asks that their love may abound yet more 
and more. Without love there is no Christian 
life. To live truly at all is to love. Love is 
perfect tense of live, — at least, spiritually, if not 
grammatically. No one can be a Christian and 
not have love. In all the cordage of the British 
naval service there is a red thread twisted, which 
cannot be taken out without undoing the whole. 
Wherever, in any part of the world, even a 
fragment of British cordage is found, it has this 
mark — the red thread. So Christian character, 
wherever found, in whatsoever country, has in 
it the red cord of love. Not to have love is not 
to be a Christian. All Christian duty is summed 
up in loving — loving God and our neighbor. 

The prayer of St. Paul is that this love may 
abound yet more and more. It is not enough 
to have a little love in the heart, a feeble, trick- 
ling spring, bubbling up, and sending out tiny 
rills and streamlets of affection. Love in us 
should be like a river. Our life should be rich 
in its gentleness, its patience, its charity, its 
longsuffering, its forgiveness, its serving. We 
want love that does not count its forgivings — seven 
times, but forgives seventy times seven times. We 
want a love that is kind, not merely to those 
who show kindness, but also to those who are 
unkind. We want a love that loves on when 

136 



Praying for Our Friends 

grieved and hurt ; that does good in return for 
evil and hatred ; that teaches us to pray for those 
who despitefully use us. We want a love that 
is unaffected by men's cruel treatment ; that 
pours out its gentleness and goodness upon evil 
and good ; that, in the enduring of personal 
injury, is like the lake which, when ploughed by 
the cleaving keel, instantly heals its own hurt 
and is calm and smooth again. We want a love 
that abounds in service, forgetting itself, giving, 
sacrificing unto the uttermost, to bless others. 
We want a love which beareth all things and 
never faileth. We may never say, even after 
the highest achievements of loving, " I have 
now reached my ideal of unselfishness, of pa- 
tience, of gentleness, of serving. I have now 
done my share for other people. I will take no 
more burdens on me. I will wear myself out 
no more in serving." Our love is to abound 
yet more and more. 

St. Paul prayed that the love of his friends 
might abound yet more and more in knowl- 
edge. Love without knowledge is mere emo- 
tion, which soon dies out. We must know God 
to love him truly. The reason so many do not 
love God is because they do not know him. 
This suggests the importance of a continual 
growth in knowledge of God. How can we 

i37 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

get this knowledge ? How do we get to know 
a human friend better ? Is it not by meeting 
him often ; by talking with him to learn his 
thoughts and feelings ; by watching his acts to 
learn the mode of his life ; by observing his 
disposition and bearing to discover his spirit? 
How else can we get to know God better ? If 
we never meet with him, if we never talk with 
him, if we never study his word, if we never 
observe his ways, how can we ever know him ? 
The Bible reveals God. It unfolds his char- 
acter and tells us what are his thoughts toward 
us, what is his will for us. Study the Book if 
you would know God. 

Jesus was called the Word. A word reveals 
thought. A thought lies in the depths of your 
soul and no one can read it. Then you speak, 
and the thought is made known. In the depths 
of God's being lay the mystery of his love, 
grace and truth. Men could not know it. No 
one by searching could find out God. Then 
Jesus came, the Word, revealing the thoughts 
that were in the mind of the Father. God laid 
bare his heart in Christ. Know Jesus and you 
will know God. Then, knowing God better, 
your love for him will abound more and more. 

We stand on the mere edge of a great ocean 
of knowledge, as we seek to learn of God. We 

138 



Praying for Our Friends 

can get, at the best, only little fragments of 
knowledge of him. Spain used to stamp on 
her coins the two pillars of Hercules, the two 
great promontories of rock at Gibraltar, casting 
over the figures a scroll bearing the words, Me 
plus ultra — " No more beyond." She fancied 
that there were no lands beyond those rocks. 
But one day a bold spirit sailed far away be- 
yond these pillars of Hercules and discovered a 
new world. Then Spain wisely changed her 
coins, striking off" the word Ne, leaving Plus 
ultra — "More beyond." Some of us may have 
been fancying that we know all of God there 
is to be known in this world. But out beyond 
our little Ne plus ultra there lies a vast continent 
of knowledge of him. We may study theology, 
the science of God, for ages, and still we shall 
only begin to know him. 

Then the more we know of God and love 
him, the more shall we love our fellow-men. 
For true human love is only the lesson of God's 
love learned. We only try to think over God's 
love thoughts. Jesus commands us to love each 
other as he loves us. It is only as we learn 
how Christ loves us that we know how to love 
one another. All our lessons in loving we must 
get from him. We must know Christ's patience 
before we can be patient, Christ's gentleness 

i39 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

before we can be gentle, Christ's way of for- 
giving before we can truly forgive. 

There is a medieval legend of a priest who 
knocked one day at a peasant's door and found 
his king seated at meat at the peasant's table. 
He was greatly surprised, and expressed fear as 
to the effect of such condescension. " But," 
answered the king, " do we not meet as brothers 
— this peasant and I — about the table of a com- 
mon Lord, yonder where you minister ? And 
if I own that brotherhood so freely there, 
should I not sometimes own it elsewhere ?" 
The king's answer contained love's lesson for 
us. We are all one in Christ — rich and poor, 
great and small, refined and unrefined, and we 
should be one in life and spirit everywhere. 

Another of St. Paul's prayers is that his 
friends may approve the things that are excel- 
lent. We must be always making selections in 
this world. We cannot take up everything that 
lies in our path, and we ought to choose the 
best things. Even among right things there is 
room for choice, for some right things are better 
than others. There are a great many good 
people, however, who choose habitually not 
the best things, but second-rate things. They 
labor for the bread that perisheth, when they 
might labor for the meat that endureth unto 

140 



Praying for Our Friends 

everlasting life. Even in their prayers they ask 
for temporal blessings, when they might ask for 
spiritual gifts and treasures. They are like the 
man with the muck-rake, who drags his imple- 
ment among the weeds and worthless rubbish, 
while over his head are crowns that he might 
take into his hands. They are moved in their 
choices by lower instead of higher considera- 
tions. They sell heavenly birthrights for mere 
messes of pottage. They toil for this world's 
things when they might have been laying up 
treasures in heaven. 

We have only one life to live ; we ought 
therefore to do the best possible with it. We 
pass through this world only once ; we ought 
to gather up and take with us the things that 
will truly enrich us — things we can keep for- 
ever. " Only the eternal is important," is the 
inscription engraved over the doorway of the 
Cathedral of Milan. It is not worth our while 
to toil and moil and strive and struggle to do 
things that will leave no results when life is 
done, while there are things we can do which 
are not in vain. 

What then are the things that are excellent ? 
All Christian kindness is excellent. It leaves 
results in this world, in other lives — results 
which will outlast time. The words which 

141 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

you speak in love and truth into other hearts, 
will never perish. The poet found his song, 
long, long after it had been sung, from beginning 
to end, in the heart of his friend. So will it 
be with every word spoken and every song sung 
for Christ ; some day we shall find them all in 
some heart. Christian service is among the 
excellent things which we should choose. Idle- 
ness is cursed. It produces death in the idler. 
Work blesses the world and blesses him who 
works. 

Noble character is excellent. Some one says, 
" The only thing that walks back from the 
tomb with the mourners, and refuses to be 
buried, is character.'' This is true. What a 
man is survives him. It never can be buried. 
It stays about his home when his footsteps are 
heard there no more. It lives in the community 
where he was known. And this same thing — 
character — a man carries with him into the 
other life. Hence we should take care to build 
into our character only beautiful things, things 
that will be admitted into the heavenly kingdom. 
St. Paul teaches this when he says : " Whatso- 
ever things are true, whatsoever things are 
honorable, whatsoever things are just, whatso- 
ever things are pure, whatsoever things are 
lovely, whatsoever things are of good report — 

142 



Praying for Our Friends 

think on these things" — and " these things do." 
It is worth while to gather into our character 
these beautiful things, these eternal things, for 
we can keep them forever. 

Another excellent thing is true friendship. 
We must choose the best. There are friend- 
ships that only hurt the life, that poison the 
fountain of being, that mar the beauty of the 
soul. We can find no perfect friends ; all have 
their faults — ways that will annoy and vex us, 
peculiarities that will fret us. Still there are 
friends who, with all their imperfections, are 
heaven's holy gifts to us. To have a friend 
who is true, worthy, noble, pure, is a blessed 
privilege. Friendship brings benedictions into 
our life. It makes us stronger, for it shares 
life's loads with us. It is an inspiration to us. 
It writes its lines of beauty on our soul. The 
things that are true, which holy friendship 
brings into our life, we shall have always. Even 
death cannot rob us of them. 

These are suggestions of the " things that are 
excellent," which a Christian should choose to 
live for. . Thousands of lives are wasted because 
they are spent in striving after things that are 
not worth while. We are immortal beings, and 
it is folly for us to live for this life only and 
neglect the things that are eternal. 

H3 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

" To hug the wealth ye cannot use 

And lack the riches all may gain : 
O blind, and wanting wit to choose, 

Who house the chaff and burn the grain ! 
And still doth life with starry towers 

Lure to the bright, divine ascent. 
Be yours the things ye would } be ours 

The things that are more excellent. 

The grace of friendship — mind and heart 

Linked with their fellow heart and mind ; 
The gains of science, gifts of art, 

The sense of oneness with our kind ; 
The thirst to know and understand — 

A large and liberal discontent ; 
There are the goods in life's rich hand, 

The things that are more excellent." 

Another of St. Paul's prayers for his friends 
is that they may be sincere and void of offence. 
Sincere means without wax. In Rome's palmy 
days, many people lived in fine marble palaces. 
Sometimes a dishonest workman, when there 
was a piece chipped off a stone, would fill in 
the chink with a kind of cement, called wax, 
an imitation of marble. For a time, the decep- 
tion would not be discovered, but after a while 
the wax would be discolored, and thus the fraud, 
the untruth, would be exposed. It became 
necessary, therefore, to put in contracts with 
builders a clause, providing that the work should 

144 



Praying for Our Friends 

be sine cera — without wax. This is the story 
of our word sincere. It means that the life 
described is true through and through, without 
deception, without fraud, or any mere seeming. 
Its professions are real. It makes no pretensions, 
but is simply itself. 

We should mark well this feature of life for 
which St. Paul prays. Insincerity in any form 
mars the beauty of a character. What a farce 
people play who pose before the world for what 
they are not ! We all remember how, in what 
scathing words, Jesus denounced hypocrisy. 
This was the only sin of which he did not 
speak with pity and compassion. There may 
be hypocrisy in other things besides religion. 
One may be a hypocrite in dress, in mode of 
living, in professions of friendship, in business, 
in work. There is a great deal that flashes for 
diamond that is not diamond. There is much 
show of wealth that is only poverty in purple 
robes. There is plenty of marble in appearance 
that is only wax. St. Paul's prayer is that his 
friends may be sincere in all things. It is a 
good prayer for all of us to make for ourselves. 

We should be true through and through. We 

should live so that we shall never be afraid of 

exposure. What a farce it is to live falsely, 

insincerely before the world, a mere empty 

jc 145 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

life of outside seeming, while the divine eye is 
looking down into the heart and seeing the poor 
miserable reality ! 

St. Paul prays also that his friends may be 
without offence. We use the word offend of 
hurt feeling. We offend a man when we make 
him angry. The Bible takes small note of 
mere hurt feelings, but it regards as of infinite 
importance a hurt done to a life. We offend 
another in the Bible sense when, by our example, 
our influence, our words, any act of ours, we 
cause him to stumble or fall. Paul's prayer is 
that his friends should never do anything that 
would cause others to stumble. It is very im- 
portant that we learn to live so that we shall 
never harm other souls. Jesus spoke very ear- 
nestly of the sin of causing a little one to stumble. 
It is a grievous thing to sin ; it is a yet more 
grievous thing to be the cause of another's 
sinning. We must guard our habits, lest we 
set the feet of others in paths which will lead 
them to ruin. We must watch our words, lest 
in unguarded moments we say that which will 
poison another's mind. We must look to our 
example, lest its influence become the bane and 
curse of an innocent life. We should be with- 
out offence in all our life. 

Another of St. Paul's prayers for his friends 

146 



Praying for Our Friends 

was that they should be filled with the fruits of 
righteousness. It is good to be without offence, 
— that is, not to do any harm in the world. 
Yet that is not the best thing. Some people are 
so afraid of doing harm that they never do any 
good. But that is not the kind of goodness the 
Bible urges us to have. We are to be active, 
always abounding in the work of the Lord. 
We are to bring forth fruit, much fruit, and so 
be Christ's disciples. We are to be filled with 
the fruits of righteousness. This suggests a life 
that is holy, bearing the fruits of the Spirit, — 
love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, good- 
ness, meekness, faith. It means also a life full 
of good works. We must be useful people, 
helpful people. The world is a great sea, in 
whose dark waters souls are perishing, and we 
must be fishers of men. All about us are human 
need and sorrow, and we must be comforters 
and helpers. We must be Christ to the world, 
ever carrying in us the healing of Christ. 

It is on its branches that the vine bears its fruits, 
and we are the branches. Christ must live in 
this world in us and through us. The fruits 
with which we would feed the world's hunger 
must grow in our lives. " Give ye them to 
eat," is Christ's answer when we tell him of 
the people all about us who are perishing. 

i47 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

It is fruits of righteousness with which we 
are to be filled. The revival that the world 
waits for to-day in the church is a revival of 
righteousness. " You are not as good as your 
Book," said a Brahmin to the missionaries in 
India. "If you were as good as your Book, 
India would soon be Christ's. " If all Christians 
were as good as their Book, this whole world 
would be Christ's in a little while. We must 
keep the commandments. We must be holy. 
We must live righteously and godly in this 
present evil world. We must bring the king- 
dom of heaven down to earth in our living. 



148 



CHAPTER XII. 
Transforming Power of Prayer. 

If we with earnest effort could succeed 

To make our life one long connected prayer, 
As lives of some perhaps have been and are ; 

If, never leaving thee, we had no need 

Our wandering spirits back again to lead 
Into thy presence, but continue there, 
Like angels standing on the highest stair 

Of the sapphire throne— this were to pray, indeed. 

But if distractions manifold prevail, 
And if in this we must confess we fail, 

Grant us to keep at least a prompt desire, 
Continual readiness for prayer and praise, 

An altar heaped and waiting to take fire 
With the least spark, and leap into a blaze. 

Trench. 

Ir is a very interesting fact that it was as Jesus 
was praying that he was transfigured. When 
he first knelt on the cold mountain, there was 
no brightness on his face. But, as he continued 
in prayer, there began to be, at length, a strange 
glow on his features. Brighter and brighter it 
grew, until his face shone as the sun. Heaven 

149 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

came down to earth, and glory crowned the 
transfiguration mount. 

What was true for him in his human life is 
true also for his people. Prayer transfigures. 
There may be no such bodily transfiguration as 
there was in the case of Jesus. Yet we have 
all seen human faces which had a strange light 
in them, caused by the peace and joy within. 
The heart makes the face. The spirit writes 
the lines of its features on the countenance. 
An unhappy heart soon makes an unhappy face. 
Discontent cannot long be hidden ; it soon shows 
itself on the surface, working up from the soul's 
depths. Bad temper reveals itself, not only in 
unseemly outbreaks, but in the whole expression. 
Lust in the heart before long stains and blotches 
the features. 

On the other hand, good and beautiful things 
within reveal themselves in the face. We have 
all seen sick people, who, in sorest pain, yet 
endured with a patience which made their feat- 
ures glow. We have seen persons enduring sor- 
row, whose peace seemed to shine through their 
tears as if a holy lamp were burning within. 
We have seen old people who had learned life's 
lessons so well that their faces, though wrinkled 
with age, appeared transfigured in sweet, quiet 
beauty. 

150 



Transforming Power of Prayer 

Then who has not seen faces, even in the 
coffin, on which in very death there appeared 
to sit a restful calm, as if the spirit, in depart- 
ing, had thrown back the reflection of its own 
blessedness ? Some one writes : 

How oft we see upon some still, dead face 

A strange, new grace : 
A beauty that in life we could not trace j 

As if, quick pausing in its glad release, 

Its spirit touched with peace 
The clay o'er which its power now shall cease j 

And we who thought to look upon our dead 

With shrinking dread, 
By that sweet, rapturous calm are comforted. 

Even the body is, indeed, ofttimes changed, 
transfigured, by the grace that dwells within. 
Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. 
We are assured, too, that in the resurrection, 
Christ shall change our mortal bodies into the 
likeness of his own glorified body. Moses and 
Elijah, who appeared in glory on the transfigu- 
ration mount, were saints in their common, 
every-day heavenly dress. 

But whatever we may say about the body, the 
character of the believer is transfigured. A 
Christian life is a new incarnation. If Christ 
dwell in you he will produce in you the same 

151 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

kind of life which he himself lived when he 
was on the earth. This change does not come 
in its completeness instantaneously the moment 
one believes on Christ. It begins then. But 
life is large. Life's lessons are many and hard 
to learn. Paul was an old man when he said, 
" I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therein 
to be content." It had taken him many years 
to learn this lesson of contentment. It takes 
any of us years to get life's lessons learned. 
But nothing is clearer than that life's mission 
here is to be transformed into the likeness of 
Christ. There is to be a transfiguration of 
character. Holiness must become the every-day 
dress of the Christian. We are called to be 
saints, even in this world. 

There is yet another way in which Christian 
life is transfigured by faith in Christ. The very 
garments of Jesus were changed, sharing in his 
transfiguration. This suggests that for the 
Christian all life's conditions and circumstances 
— the garments of life — are transfigured. 

Take the matter of care. Every life has 
cares. There are cares in business. There 
are cares in home-life. There are cares of 
poverty, but no less has the rich man his cares. 
Childhood has its anxieties ; young faces some- 
times appear careworn. No one can escape 

152 



Transforming Power of Prayer 

care. To many people life is very hard. But 
Christian faith transfigures care for those who 
are Christ's and have learned how to live as he 
teaches us to live. He tells us to be anxious 
for nothing, because our Father is caring for us. 
He tells us that life is a school and that all our 
cares are parts of lessons set for us. That means 
that every care has hidden in it a secret of bless- 
ing — a gift of love our Father has sent to us. 
Every time you come to a hard point in your 
life, — an obstacle, a difficulty, a perplexity, — 
God is giving you a new chance to grow 
stronger, wiser, or richer-hearted. We try to 
make life easy for our children, but God is 
wiser than we are. He wants his children to 
have struggles, that they may grow brave and 
noble. Mrs. Sangster writes : 

Our way had been to smooth her upward road, 
Easing the pressure of each heavy load ; 
Never to let her white hand know a soil, 
Never her back to feel the ache of toil. 
Could we have shielded her from every care, 
Kept her forever young and blithe and fair, 
And from her body warded every pain, 
And from her spirit all distress and strain, 
This had been joy of joys, our chosen way. 
God led her by a different path, each day ; 
Sorrow and work and anxious care he gave, — 
And strife and anguish, — till her soul grew brave. 

J53 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

Thus it is that common care is transfigured 
by the grace of Christ. It enfolds blessings for 
us. It carries in its dreary form secrets of good 
for us. Our drudgeries have benedictions in 
their wearisome routine ; we get many of our 
best lessons out of them. All we need to learn 
is how to meet our worries, and they are trans- 
figured for us. The light of Christ shines 
through them. 

St. Paul tells us in a wonderful passage how 
to get this transformation of care, — to be anx- 
ious for nothing, but in everything by prayer to 
make our requests, our worries, known to God. 
Then the peace of God shall guard our hearts 
and our thoughts. That is transfiguration — 
God's peace shining through all life's frets. 
Sleeping on our pillow of stone, with the cold 
night's chill about us, we have visions of God 
and glory. Thus care is transfigured by the 
love of Christ in the heart. 

Take sorrow. Every one has sorrow. Being 
a Christian does not exempt any one from grief. 
But here, again, faith in Christ brings trans- 
figuration. Not only are we taught to endure 
patiently and submissively the sorrows that come 
to us, but we are assured that there is a blessing 
in them for us, if we accept them with love and 
trust. One of the deepest truths taught in the 

i54 



Transforming Power of Prayer 

Bible is that earthly sorrow has a mission in the 
sanctifying of life. One of the most sacred 
words of all Scripture is that which tells us that 
Jesus Christ was made perfect through sufferings. 
This teaches that in the culture of even his 
sinless character there was something which 
only suffering could do, which he could get in 
no other school. His life was not perfect in its 
development until he had suffered. 

We dread pain, and yet the soul that has not 
experienced pain has not yet touched the deepest 
and most precious meanings of life. There are 
things we never can learn, save in the school of 
pain. There are reaches of life we never can 
attain, save in the bitterness of sorrow. There 
are joys we never can have until we come into 
the dark ways of trial. A French writer says, 
" Perhaps to suffer is nothing else than to live 
deeply. Love and sorrow are the two conditions 
of a profound life." These are true words. 
Without loving, one can never know anything 
of life worth knowing ; and without suffering, 
one can never get below the surface in human 
experience. Not to have sorrow, in some form, 
is to miss one of life's holiest opportunities. 
We get our best things out of trial. Those 
who wear the white robes in heaven are the 
saints who have come out of great tribulation. 

i55 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

Thus it is that Christian teaching pours the 
light of Christ upon sorrow. Faith sees sorrow 
no longer dark and portentous, but struck through 
with the radiance of heaven, transfigured by the 
blessedness of Christ. 

Duty, also, is transfigured by faith in Christ. 
Duty is not easy. It covers every moment. 
Ofttimes it is hard, almost more than we can 
endure. Men find work oppressive in their 
places of business and toil. Women bend under 
their burden of household work, which is never 
done. Much of all this duty is not only hard, 
but it is also dreary, — the same things over and 
over, in endless routine. Ofttimes, too, nothing 
seems to come out of it at all. It is like dipping 
up water in a bucket with holes ; nothing 
is gained. The hands are empty at the close, 
after a whole lifetime of toil. Many people 
grow discouraged when they think of the hard, 
grinding routine to which they must put their 
hands anew every morning. The reward for 
doing their work well is only more work, and 
harder. 

But here, again, Christian faith transforms all. 
There is a blessing in duty, no matter how dull 
and wearisome it is. There is a blessing in the 
mere doing of it, though nothing seem to come 
of it. God loves faithfulness, and always re- 

156 



Transforming Power of Prayer 

wards it. One may work hard for seventy 
years, and have nothing laid up in banks or in 
real estate ; but if he has wrought truly he has 
indeed much treasure laid up. Work itself is a 
blessing, one of the best means of grace. It 
lays up strength in the body. It trains and 
develops the powers. It makes a man a man — 
self-reliant, capable, conscious of power. We 
talk of the drudgery of our common task-work ; 
it is in this very drudgery that we get our best 
education. We form good habits, and thus build 
up life and character. 

Then think of a man supporting a home, 
bringing up a family, providing for his wife and 
children through all his years, and sending out 
his sons and daughters to take an honorable 
place in the world. Suppose that he is as poor 
at the end of his life as he was at the beginning ; 
if he has done all this, can he say that his 
commonplace duty all the years has left no 
blessing ? He has not piled money into walls 
and stocks and goods, but he has built blessing 
into immortal lives. He has gathered a wealth 
of noble character into his own soul. He has 
laid up treasures in heaven by his faithfulness. 

These are hints of the way faith in Christ 
transfigures duty. There is a blessing in every 
fragment of it when love fills it. An artist's 

157 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

picture shows a number of angels in a kitchen, 
doing the work of a weary house-wife. One is 
putting the kettle on the fire. One is lifting a 
pail of water. One is getting down the dishes 
from the cupboard. Another is sweeping the 
floor. There really is no fiction in this bit of 
art- work. It is beautiful as angels' work, the 
household duty of the mothers and daughters in 
the home. Then we know that there was One, 
higher than all angels, who actually wrought for 
years in a peasant carpenter-shop. That is not 
an artist's fancy, — that is human story. Let not 
the men who work now in business and at trades, 
toiling ofttimes even to painful weariness, ever 
say that work is not holy. All duty is sacred, 
transfigured, if it be done with love for Christ 
in the heart. 

Thus, turn where we may, we find the bright 
shining of the glory of the Redeemer in these 
lives of ours. Our very bodies are made glorious 
by being the temples of the Holy Spirit. Our 
characters are renewed and transformed into the 
beauty of the Lord by the faith that lives within 
us. Then all life is transfigured, — care, sorrow, 
duty. 

The analogy holds also in the other fact that 
it is in prayer, communion with God, that this 
transforming takes place. All true prayer has a 

158 



Transforming Power of Prayer 

transfiguring influence. It brings us into the 
immediate presence of God. The holy of 
holies in the ancient temple, where the She- 
kinah was, was no holier than where you bow 
every time you pray. You are looking up into 
the face of Christ himself. John was not 
nearer to him, lying upon his breast, than you 
are in your praying. One cannot thus look up 
into the face of Christ and not have some 
measure of transfiguration wrought in him. 

Then prayer is the reaching up of the soul 
toward God. It lifts the life for the time into 
the highest, holiest frame. A prayerful spirit 
is full of aspirations for God. Its longings are 
pressing up Godward. No mood of spiritual 
life is more blessed than longing. It is God in 
the soul kindling its desires and yearnings for 
righteousness and holiness. It is the transfig- 
uring of the spirit which purifies these dull, 
earthly lives of ours, and changes them, little 
by little, into the divine image. 

All true prayer is characterized by submission 
to God's will. We come to God's feet full of 
our own ways and wishes. But it may be that 
our ways are not God's ways. Perhaps we are 
willful, insubmissive, rebellious. We desire 
things that are not best for us, and we are not 
willing to sink our will in God's. But while 

i59 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

this is our spirit, we cannot even begin to pray. 
We must be brought to say, " Not my will, but 
thine be done." Thus praying compels us into 
surrender and submission. It trains us to leave 
all our requests at God's feet in confidence. 
The highest possible Christian consecration is 
found in the perfect yielding of the human will 
to the divine. That itself is a transfiguration. 
Prayer that compels us to submit our way to 
God's transforms us into God's image. 

Then prayer transfigures us, because it brings 
down divine grace and good into our life. 
Prayers are answered. The things we pray for 
we get, if they are things that would truly bless 
our life. We are weak and pray for strength ; 
we rise from our knees with the power of 
Christ resting upon us. We pray for holiness, 
and into our heart comes a new gift of life, and 
we feel in us impulses toward better things. 
We are in temptation, with fierce struggles, and 
calling for help ; we receive blessing from the 
ministry of angels, who are sent to strengthen 
us. We are in sorrow, and, praying, we get 
comfort from God. Thus it is that wherever 
we pray, heaven is open above us, and divine 
blessings are sent down upon us. The touch 
of God is upon our soul in some way. Some 
new brightness begins to shine in our life. 

1 60 



Transforming Power of Prayer 

" Lord, what a change within us one short hour 
Spent in thy presence will avVil to make S 
What heavy burdens from our bosoms take ! 
What parched fields refresh as with a shower ! 
We kneel, and all around us seems to lower; 
We rise, and all, the distant and the near, 
Stands forth in sunny outline, brave and clear. 
We kneel, how weak ! we rise, how full of power !" 

Thus prayer transforms our weakness into 
strength. It changes our defeats into victories. 
It brings us peace in turmoil. It changes fret- 
ting care into quiet trust. It sets rainbows on 
our storm clouds. It makes our tears of sorrow 
lenses, through which we see deeper into heaven. 
It opens the treasures of God's love and enriches 
us with the best things of grace. Praying, we 
are transfigured. 



161 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Serving our Generation. 

" My life is not my own, but Christ's, who gave it, 
And he bestows it upon all the race ; 
I lose it for his sake, and thus I save itj 
I hold it close, but only to expend it; 

Accept it, Lord, for others, through thy grace." 

" To have been thought about by God, born 
in God's thought, and then made by God, is 
the dearest, grandest, most precious thing in all 
thinking." It gives dignity and also sacredness 
to our life to think thus of it. Every true- 
hearted person, realizing this truth, will seek to 
work out God's thought in his own character 
and life. Of course, we cannot do this perfectly, 
for nothing human is perfect. The artist fails 
to put all his vision into his picture. 

" No great thinker ever lived and taught you 
All the wonder that his soul received j 
No true painter ever set on canvas 
All the glorious vision he conceived. 
162 



Serving our Generation 

No real poet ever wove in numbers 
All his dream ; but the diviner part, 

Hidden from all the world, spoke to him only, 
In the voiceless silence of his heart." 



In all our life we do, even at our best, but a. 
little of the beautiful work we intend and plan. 
We blunder and stumble in our holiest en- 
deavors. Our clumsy hands mar the lovely- 
ideals which our soul visions. We set out in 
the morning with high resolves, but our evening 
confessions tell of many a shortcoming. We 
never live any day as well as we know how to 
live. 

Yet there is a sense in which, without attain- 
ing perfection, a human life may fulfill God's 
plan for it. One of the most interesting illus- 
trations of such a life is David's. The Lord 
says, " I have found David, the son of Jesse, a 
man after mine own heart, who shall fulfill all 
my will." Then in another sentence we catch 
the secret of this life which was so complete. 
We are told that he " served his own generation 
by the will of God." It is worth our while to 
look closely at this inspired description of a life 
that so pleased God, in order that we may learn 
how to work out the divine thought for our- 
selves. 

163 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

There are several luminous words in the brief 
sentence which make its meaning very clear. 
The word served is one of these. David 
served. This is not a favorite word. We 
naturally resent the idea of serving. It seems 
to have an ignoble meaning. But really it is 
one of the royalest of words. One who has 
not begun to serve has not begun to live. God 
never yet made a life for selfishness. Jesus 
came to show us the perfect divine ideal of 
human living, and he served unto the very utter- 
most. " I came not to be ministered unto, but 
to minister," was his own declaration of his 
life's central thought and purpose. When they 
asked him who was greatest in his kingdom, he 
said, " He that serves." We are to live not to 
get, but to give ; not to be helped, but to help ; 
not to receive, but to bestow. Whittier says : 

Love is sweet in any guise j 
But its best is sacrifice. 

He who, giving, does not crave, 
Likest is to him who gave 
Life itself the loved to save. 

Helen Hunt Jackson puts the same truth in 
most striking way : 

164 



Serving our Generation 

When love is strong, 
It never tarries to take heed 
Or know if its return exceed 
Its gifts ; in its sweet haste no greed, 

No strifes, belong. 

It hardly asks 
If it be loved at all ; to take 
So barren seems, when it can make 
Such bliss, for the beloved's sake, 

Of bitter tasks. 



Another phase of the thought lies in the 
fuller phrase — David served his own generation. 
This is a large saying. What was David's 
generation ? In general, it was the whole num- 
ber of the people who lived when he did. Oar 
generation is the entire human family living at 
the present time on the earth. How can any 
man serve all his own generation ? There are 
hundreds of millions of people he can never 
see ; how can he do anything for these ? One 
way of serving our own generation is to fill well 
the little place to which we are assigned in the 
divine providence. This is the answer to the 
question for the greater number of us. We can 
do most to bless the world at large by being a 
true blessing to the little circle in the midst of 
which we are placed. 

165 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

Another way in which we can serve our 
generation is by giving to it something which 
will enrich it, which will add to its happiness 
and good, which will make it better, purer. 
We have an illustration of this in the story of 
David's life. He gave much to his generation. 
He began in a very humble way. He was a 
shepherd-boy, keeping his father's sheep. No 
doubt even then he did his lowly work well. 
Besides, although unconsciously, he was now in 
training for his larger duties, and he learned 
aptly. It was not long until his life began to 
be a blessing. 

One day there came a remarkable opportunity 
for this lad to serve his people and country. 
A great giant stalked before the lines of the 
army, challenging the king and his warriors. 
By single combat the question was to be decided. 
But there was no one in Saul's army who would 
accept the challenge and meet the champion. 
Day after day the mocking scene was repeated. 
Then David came to the field, — came on a 
simple errand to his brothers, — and his hand 
laid the proud giant in the dust. By this victory 
he served his nation — served his generation. 

Then followed a long period of sore trial, 
when the envy and hatred of Saul made David 
an exile. He was hunted among the hills by 

166 



Serving our Generation 

the king and his men as if he had been a wild 
beast. His life was continually in peril. He 
suffered injury and wrong. But even in those 
days he was serving his own generation. He 
did this by his noble bearing under wrong and 
persecution. He never resented the king's anger 
or the injustice of the treatment he received. 
He endured it all sweetly. On two occasions, 
when he had his enemy in his power, he would 
not harm him, but returned kindness for mur- 
derous hate. David served his generation most 
effectively during those dark years by giving to 
it such an example of true and beautiful living. 

We say that one who paints a fine picture 
serves his generation. He sets before the eyes 
of men a fragment of beauty which is a bene- 
diction to all who see it, leaving in human hearts 
a new thought of tenderness, a new vision of 
noble living, a sentiment which makes lives 
truer, richer, humaner, diviner. So does every 
one serve his generation who shows it a frag- 
ment of beautiful living — patience under trial, 
purity and uprightness under temptation, love 
and meekness under injury and wrong. The 
blessing of David's behavior while pursued by 
Saul has stayed all these centuries since in the 
world, a refining, uplifting, enriching influence. 

David also served his generation as king. 

167 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

Saul had failed. He was not a good king. He 
was not doing his work well. Then God re- 
moved him, and called David to the throne. 
In many ways David's reign was a blessing. 
He conquered his people's enemies and took 
possession of the whole land of promise. His 
was largely a work of conquest. He desired to 
build a temple for the Lord, but he was not 
permitted to do this, for this was not in God's 
plan for him — this was another man's mission. 
Yet the temple was in a sense his. The thought 
of it was his. He purchased the site for it. 
Hs gathered vast treasures for its erection. 
Thus he served his generation by what he did 
for the honor of God's name. 

Any one who sets the name of God in clearer 
light before men, so that its glory shall shine 
more widely and its influence touch more hearts 
and lives, has wrought a service for the race. 
The whole world was the better for David's 
reign as king of Israel. The light of his benefi- 
cent work reached all lands and shines yet 
throughout all countries. 

David served his generation also through the 
psalms he wrote. He was the first to give 
sacred music a place in the worship of God. 
He organized the great choir which afterwards 
sang in the temple. Then he wrote the first 

1 68 



Serving our Generation 

hymns which were sung in God's worship. 
No one can estimate the value to his generation 
of this one part of David's serving. He who 
writes a sweet song which lifts men's hearts to- 
ward God, which kindles praise and devotion, 
which inspires joy and hope in sorrow, which 
gives new impulses to holy living, has done one 
of the noblest services to his fellow-men which 
it is permitted to mortal to do on this earth. 

But the ministry of David's harp was not for 
his own generation only ; it was for all after 
generations. David's psalms have been sung 
now for nearly three thousand years. They 
have become an important part of the hymnody 
of the Christian church. Not even the gospels 
are read more in the devotions of Christian 
people than some of David's psalms. Who can 
ever estimate the service to the world of such 
single psalms as the twenty-third and the fifty- 
first ? How many hearts have been comforted, 
how many fears quieted, how many trembling 
feet steadied as they entered the valley of 
shadows, how many tears of mourners dried, 
through the reading and singing of the shepherd 
psalm ? How many sinning souls have been led 
back to God along the paths of penitence by 
the psalm of repentance ? 

These are mere suggestions of the way David 

169 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

served his generation. He did it simply by being 
faithful in the place of present duty. It was not 
by any one act alone that he blessed his genera- 
tion. Of course, there were great single acts 
whose influence went out widely, but all these 
acts formed part of the one life. David's shep- 
herd-life seemed lowly and obscure. How was 
he serving his generation then ? He could not 
have slain Goliath and delivered his country's 
armies from the terror of the Philistine cham- 
pion, if, as a shepherd lad, he had not become 
expert in the use of the sling. Nor could he 
have written the twenty-third psalm in his old 
age, breathing into it the precious thoughts which 
have made it such a blessing to millions, if he 
had not been a shepherd himself in his boyhood, 
leading his sheep in the green pastures, beside 
the still waters, in right paths, through deep, 
dark valleys. The memories of his youth live 
in every line of that wonderful psalm of old age. 
Thus even his childhood had its place in his life 
of service. Each period fitted him for the next. 
In all his ways he was faithful. He lived to 
serve, — to serve God and to serve his generation. 
In doing so he served all generations after his 
own, to the end of time. The world is better, 
sweeter, richer, purer, brighter, to-day, because 
David lived, served, suffered, reigned and sang. 

170 



Serving our Generation 

No doubt David's was a rare life. But few 
other men in the world's history have been of 
such service to their own and after generations 
as he was. Even among the great and good the 
influence of but few reaches beyond their own 
times, save as all good words and deeds live, 
being immortal. Besides, only a few men in a 
generation have power to reach, touch and im- 
press the whole generation. Hence what David 
did may seem to have no lesson for us. We 
cannot be kings. We cannot plan temples. We 
cannot write psalms or hymns which shall live 
a thousand years. We are little people and can 
fill only a little place. We cannot serve our 
generation in the same large way in which 
David served his. Yet each individual life has 
its own distinct place in the thought of God, 
and each may fill out its own pattern. 

Even the smallest life lived well blesses the 
world. We have only to be true to God and 
to love, the law of life, and our smallest words 
and deeds will in some measure at least make 
the whole race better. Every good word we 
speak adds something to the sum of goodness in 
the world. Every good deed we do makes it a 
little easier for others to do good deeds, and lifts 
a little higher the standard of living among men. 
To make one person a little happier each day, 

171 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

to lighten one burden, to make one heart braver 
and stronger, to comfort one sorrow, to guide 
one perplexed soul into peace, to show one be- 
wildered child the right path, to speak the word 
which helps one tempted person to overcome, 
to lift one fainting robin back unto his nest again 
— one such service is enough to redeem a life 
from uselessness and to make it a blessing to a 
whole generation. 

Many people are oppressed and disheartened 
by the seeming smallness and insignificance of 
their life. " I can be of no use in this great 
world," they say. " 1 am only one leaf in the 
forest, one flower in all the gardens and fields." 
Very dispiriting is the effect of this feeling of 
littleness in this great, multitudinous life. But 
we live as individuals. God knows and calls us 
by name. Each life is a distinct individuality. 
We know not what is small or what is large. 
Each smallest deed of ours starts influences which 
never shall cease to be felt in the universe. Poets 
tell us how the pebble dropped in the sea 
starts wavelets which break on all earth's shores, 
and how the word spoken into the air sets in 
motion reverberations which go round and round 
the sphere. We know at least that no smallest 
act or word of love ever can be lost. 

Much of life is only fragments — unfinished 

172 



Serving our Generation 

things, broken sentences, interrupted efforts, 
pictures left uncompleted, sculptures only half 
hewn, letters only partly written, songs only 
begun and choked in tears. But not one of 
these fragments is lost, if it has love's blessed 
life in it. 

" A broken song — it had dropped apart 
Just as it left the singer's heart, 
And was never whispered upon the air, 
Only breathed into the vague ' Somewhere.' 

A broken prayer — only half said 
By a tired child at his trundle-bed j 
While asking Jesus his soul to keep, 
With parted lips he fell asleep. 

A broken life — hardly half told 
When it dropped the burden it could not hold. 
Of these lives and songs and prayers, half done, 
God gathers the fragments every one." 

God gathers the fragments ; they are not lost. 
Then they stay in other lives, making the world 
better, sweeter, richer. Shall we call this a 
small thing? Even the lowliest life may thus 
serve its generation and all after generations. 
You may start something beautiful to-day which 
shall bless the world to its remotest ages. 

There is yet another word in this epitaph of 

i73 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

David which is needed to complete our lesson, 
" David . . . served his own generation by the 
will of God." That is, the will of God was 
the guide of his life. God had a plan for his 
life. We are not haphazard things in this 
world ; we are thoughts of God. The practical 
question is, " How can we find and fulfill God's 
plan for our life ?" We know it is possible to 
miss it altogether. King Saul missed God's 
plan for his life. He might have served his 
generation so as to bless it and bless all the 
world, leaving a name of honor and an influence 
for good for all after ages. Judas missed God's 
plan for his life. He might have been an 
apostle of Christ's grace, his name like fragrance ; 
but instead, his picture is turned to the wall 
and a hideous shame gathers about his name. 
Thousands more have missed finding and fulfill- 
ing God's thought for their life. Thousands 
are doing the same every day. 

How do they miss it? By not accepting 
God's will for them. Saul began almost at once 
to take his own way instead of God's. He 
obeyed only in part, or he did not obey at all. 
Judas resisted the teachings of the Master. He 
let the world into his heart. He gave way to 
the devil. He missed glory and got shame and 
everlasting contempt, The lesson is very sol- 

174 



Serving our Generation 

emn. We can fail of beauty and good for our 
life and miss the radiant loveliness God has 
planned for us. We surely will fail and miss 
all if we refuse to fashion our life according to 
the will of God. 

On the other hand, we may find God's plan for 
our life. David found it and fulfilled it. Thou- 
sands more have found it. The highest of all 
examples was Jesus Christ. He lived out per- 
fectly the divine purpose. In all cases, the will 
of God has been the one law of life. At every 
step we find Jesus referring to his Father's will. 
Then at last he could say, " Father, I have fin- 
ished the work which thou gavest me to do." 
If we do God's will, day by day, we shall serve 
our own generation and fill out the pattern of 
life sketched for us by the great Master of all 
lives. 

Then the end will be blessed. " David, after 
he had served his own generation, fell on sleep. " 
That was well. His work was done. Rest is 
sweet when tasks are finished. He fell on sleep, 
but his life goes on yet. God owned it and 
enshrined it. The songs he sang we are singing 
to-day. 

Victor Hugo, in his old age, said : " The 
nearer I approach the end, the plainer I hear 
around me the immortal symphonies of the world 

*75 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

which invites me. When I go down to the 
grave, I can say, like so many others, ' I have 
finished my day's work ;' but I cannot say 'I have 
finished my life !' My day's work will begin 
again next morning. My tomb is not a blind 
alley ; it is a thoroughfare ; it closes with the 
twilight to open with the dawn." 



176 



CHAPTER XIV. 
The Ministry of Suffering. 

" Look thou beyond the evening star," she said, 
" Beyond the changing splendors of the dayj 

Accept the pain, the weariness, the dread, — 
Accept and bid me stay !" 

And now I look beyond the evening star, 
Beyond the changing splendors of the day, 

Knowing the pain he sends more precious far, 
More beautiful than they. 

Celia Thaxter. 

One of the most remarkable visions of the 
Apocalypse shows us a throng arrayed in white 
robes — heaven's most honored ones. When 
the question is asked, " Who are these, and 
whence came they ?" the answer is, " These 
are they which came out of great tribulation." 
That is, the glorified ones of heaven have been 
the suffering ones of earth. Suffering is a cloud 
whose earth-side is very black, unrelieved oft- 
times by a single gleam of brightness. But 
here we get a glimpse of the heaven-side of the 
same cloud. Those who have been in sore 

M 177 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

tribulation in this world appear in brightest 
glory in heaven. The sufferings through which 
they have passed have not destroyed them, have 
not marred nor defaced the beauty of their lives. 
Indeed, they are seen here away beyond the 
experiences of pain and trial, shining in robes 
of victory and blessedness. And this high 
honor is the result of the suffering of their 
earthly life. 

Some people regard suffering as punishment 
for sin, and when it comes to them they ask 
what they have done to merit such severe treat- 
ment. Others interpret it as showing unkind- 
ness in God, and ask why, if God is their Father 
and loves them, he can send such trials upon 
them. 

But the Scriptures, while they do not solve 
all the mystery of suffering, show us that it is 
no accident in God's world, but is one of God's 
messengers, which, if received in humility and 
faith, will always leave a blessing. Our Lord 
once bade his disciples consider the lilies how 
they grew. Where do the lilies get their 
beauty ? Down in the darkness of the soil the 
roots lie, hidden, despised, amid clods ; but there 
they prepare the loveliness and the sweetness 
which make the lilies so admired as they press 
up into the air. Is it not so with the fairest 

178 



The Ministry of Suffering 

things of life, with the sweetest things of ex- 
perience ? Are not many of them born down 
in the darkness of sorrow, suffering or pain ? 
Many a life which we admire, whose gentleness, 
purity and sweetness are benedictions to the 
world, got these lovely things in a sick-room or 
in experiences of suffering. 

This is the great truth that lies in this Apoc- 
alyptic picture. The happy saints, with their 
white robes and their palms, had come out of 
great tribulation ; and the tribulation had helped 
to give them their radiant garments and their 
glad joy. We may say, then, that the design 
of God, in all the afflictions which come upon 
his people, is to make them better, to promote 
their purification of character, to prepare them 
for the inheritance of the saints in light. 

The word tribulation is suggestive. It comes 
from a word which means a flail. The thresher 
uses the flail to beat and bruise the wheat sheaves, 
that he may separate the golden grain from the 
chaff and straw. Tribulation is God's thresh- 
ing — not to destroy us, but to get what is good, 
heavenly and spiritual in us separated from what 
is wrong, earthly and fleshly. Nothing less than 
blows of pain will do this. The evil clings so 
to the good, the golden wheat of goodness in us 
is so wrapt up in the strong chaff of the old 

179 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

life, that only the heavy flail of suffering can 
produce the separation. 

Not all sufferings hang crape on doors. The 
family circle may not be broken by bereavement, 
and yet there may be tribulation crashing deep 
into the heart. There are people who wear no 
garb or sign of mourning who yet are really 
mourners. There are those who carry pain at 
their hearts continually, in the brightest sun- 
shine, when they seem gayest and happiest, 
because of things in those nearest and dearest to 
them, which weigh upon them like a cruel cross. 
Then, not all the sufferings that visit the soul 
come from without ; indeed, the worst grief is 
that which the evil of our own hearts has caused. 
To a tender spirit nothing gives so much pain 
as its own sins and failures. We grieve when 
we have to lay a friend away in the grave ; but 
we ought to grieve far more when some sin has 
defiled our conscience and hung a new veil 
between our soul and God. In the earnest 
Christian life, there are no tears so bitter as 
those that are shed in the soul's agonies, as it 
strives after holiness. 

There is no truth taught more clearly than 
that perfection of character can be reached only 
through suffering. We can never get away from 
our old self, and grow up into purity, strength 

180 



The Ministry of Suffering 

and nobleness, without pain. The fires of pas- 
sion and iniquity which are in our old nature 
cannot be burnt out without agony. Holiness 
cannot be reached without cost. Those who 
would gain the lofty heights must climb the 
cold, rough steeps that lead to them. It is 
God's design in all the pain he sends us to 
make us better. His fires mean purification. 
His prunings mean more fruitfulness. In what- 
ever form the suffering comes — as bereavement, 
as sin or shame in a friend, or as penitence and 
contrition over one's own faults — the purpose 
of pain is merciful. God is saving us in all our 
life in this world ; and suffering is one of the 
chief agents he employs. The redeemed in 
heaven have come out of great tribulation. But 
for the tribulation they would never have worn 
the white robes nor borne the palms. 

Jesus gave us as one of his beatitudes, " Blessed 
are they that mourn : for they shall be comforted." 
It is worth while to notice where this beatitude 
stands. " Blessed are the poor in spirit." "Blessed 
are the meek." " Blessed are the peacemakers." 
" Blessed are the merciful." *' Blessed are the 
pure in heart." Then, in the heart of this 
cluster, " Blessed are they that mourn." We 
do not question the blessedness of humility, of 
meekness, of the peacemaking spirit, of purity 

181 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

of heart, of mercifulness ; and mourning is set 
by the Master in the same cluster. Heaven's 
radiant light shines about Christian sorrow, just 
as about purity of heart, mercifulness, or spirit- 
ual hunger. Yet the blessing lies, not in the 
sorrow, but in the comfort. " Blessed are they 
that mourn : for they shall be comforted." 
God's comfort is such a rich blessing, that it is 
worth while to have sorrow that we may have 
the comfort. This picture in the Apocalypse, 
from the heavenly side, helps us to understand 
our Lord's beatitude. Those who have mourned 
on earth will wear the whitest robes in the glory 
of heaven. 

St. Paul, too, speaks of the blessed ministry 
of suffering. " We glory in tribulations, also, 
knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and 
patience experience, and experience hope." 
That is, tribulation works out in us qualities of 
Christian character which cannot be developed 
in human gladness. In the Epistle to the He- 
brews, the doctrine of suffering is put in this 
way : " All chastening seemeth for the present 
to be not joyous, but grievous ; yet afterward 
it yieldeth peaceable fruit unto them that have 
been exercised thereby, even the fruit of right- 
eousness." Pain is God's pruning-knife ; it 
cuts deeply, ofttimes, and seems to destroy ; but 

182 



The Ministry of Suffering 

the result is greater fruitfulness. Suffering is 
God's furnace fire. Its hot flames burn as if 
to work utter destruction ; but afterwards the 
gold that before was dim and impure shines in 
dazzling brightness. 

" God never would send you the darkness 
If he felt you could bear the light 5 
But you would not cling to his guiding hand 

If the way were always bright 5 
And you would not care to walk by faith 
Could you always walk by sight. 

So he sends you the blinding darkness, 
And the furnace of seven-fold heat. 

'Tis the only way — believe me — 
To keep you close to his feet — 

For 'tis always so easy to wander 

When our lives are glad and sweet." 

We have all known Christian sufferers who 
have grown into rare, sweet beauty as they have 
suffered. They have lost their earthliness and 
have learned heavenliness. Pride has given way 
to humility. Impatience has become sweet pa- 
tience. The harsh music has grown soft and 
gentle. The rough marble has taken the shape 
of graceful beauty. It is true, as a rule, that 
the noblest, richest, purest, most beautiful lives 
in this world have been lives of suffering. There 
are elements of loveliness in the depths of every 

183 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

life which only the fires of pain can bring out. 
The photographer carries his picture into a 
darkened room to develop it. God often takes 
his children into the chamber of pain and draws 
the curtains, while he there brings out the feat- 
ures of his own image which before had been 
only dim and shadowy outlines. 

But our lesson is not yet complete. Not all 
afflictions make people better. Not all who 
suffer are made thereby more meet for heaven. 
Tribulation does not always work patience. 
Chastening does not always, even afterward, 
yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness. We 
have all seen people suffering who only became 
more impatient, irritable, ill-tempered, selfish 
and cold, as they suffered. Many a life loses 
all the beauty it ever had in the furnace of 
affliction. There are dangerous shoals skirting 
the deeps of affliction, and many frail barques 
are wrecked in the darkness. In no experience 
of life have most persons more need of wise 
friendship and firm, loving guidance than in 
their times of trouble. 

It is not said in the Revelation that tribula- 
tion itself made the robes of the saints white. 
Tribulation is the instrument, the hand that 
washes ; but it is the blood of the Redeemer 
that makes the garments shine so radiantly. 

184 



The Ministry of Suffering 

That is, those who suffered were united to 
Christ as branches in a vine, and in all their 
sufferings were nourished by his life. 

We should learn well how to meet and endure 
trial so as to get from it the ministry of good 
and of blessing which God means it to work in 
us. We must make sure for one thing that we 
are truly in Christ. Two trees stood side by 
side, one early spring. Both of them were bare. 
The sun poured down his warm beams upon 
them both, and the clouds emptied their rain 
upon them. Soon one of them was covered 
with bursting buds and then with rich foliage ; 
but the other was still bare as ever. One of 
the trees had life and the other had no life. 
Where there was life the sun and the rain called 
out rich beauty ; where there was no life the 
effect of the sun and rain was to make the tree 
even more dreary and desolate than before. 
Where there is spiritual life in a soul, afflictions 
call it out until it glows in every feature. Where 
there is no Christ in the heart, afflictions only 
make the life wither. 

Then to get the intended benefit of the min- 
istry of pain, we must receive it as God's mes- 
senger. Once in the days of old, three strangers 
came to a good man's tent as wayfaring men. 
He courteously opened his doors to them and 

185 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

hospitably entertained them. It turned out that 
two of the men were angels and the third was 
the Lord himself. They brought their enter- 
tainer messages from God, and then departed, 
leaving benedictions in his home. We imagine 
that all angels wear radiant dress and come with 
smiling face and gentle voice. Thus artists paint 
them. But truly they come ofttimes in very 
sombre garb. One writes : 

All God's angels come to us disguised, — 
Sorrow and sickness, poverty and death, 
One after other lift their frowning masks, 
And we behold the seraph's face beneath, 
All radiant with glory and the calm 
Of having looked upon the face of God. 

We should receive sorrow always reverently, 
with welcome, as God's messenger. We should 
accept its message, even in our pain, as a word 
from God himself. No messenger of pain ever 
comes without a blessing in its hot hand for us. 
If we welcome it as coming in the name of the 
Lord, it will leave benedictions. Mrs. Gil- 
christ says of Mary Lamb, '-' She had a life-long 
sorrow, and learned to find its companionship 
not bitter." It is possible so to acquiesce in 
God's will when it brings pain or grief, that all 
our life shall be enriched and blessed through 
the suffering. 

186 



The Ministry of Suffering 

To get the benefit of the ministry of suffer- 
ing we must seek true comfort. Most people 
have very imperfect ideas regarding this matter 
of comfort. They suppose that if they can 
cease to weep and resume again their old familiar 
course of life, they are comforted. They think 
only of getting through the trial, and not of 
getting anything of good or blessing out of it. 
But the real problem in enduring pain is not to 
bear it bravely, without wincing ; to pass through 
it patiently and even rejoicingly ; but to get 
from it new strength for life, new purity of 
soul, new revealings of God's face, more of the 
love of Christ in our heart, and fresh grace for 
obedience and duty. We ought to get some- 
thing good out of every experience of pain, 
some new victory over sin, some fresh impulse 
for service. 

When we have passed through a season of 
suffering and stand beyond it, there ought to be 
a new light in our eye, a new glow in our face, 
a new gentleness in our touch, a new sweetness 
in our voice, a new hope in our heart, and a 
new consecration in our life. We ought not to 
stay in the shadows of sorrow, but should come 
again to the place of service and duty. We 
ought not to permit our tears to flow too long, 
but should turn our grief quickly into new 

187 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

channels of loving devotion and active usefulness. 
When we come again, after our time of sorrow 
or pain, our face should shine as did the face of 
Moses when he came down from the mount. 
The comfort that God gives puts deep new joy 
into the heart and anoints the mourner with a 
new baptism of love and power. We must be 
sure to get true comfort when we are in tribula- 
tion, for then our tribulation will help to fit us 
for the glory of heaven. 

In the vision of the Apocalypse we see earth's 
mourners beyond all their tribulation. Suffering 
is not to last always. If we are Christ's dis- 
ciples we are going through it — we must go 
through it to reach heaven. Glory lies beyond 
the veil of sorrow, and we must go through 
the dark stream to reach it. But it is only a 
narrow stream, and soon we shall have crossed 
it and shall be beyond it forever. In the won- 
derful shepherd psalm we read of passing through 
the valley of shadows. The shepherd leads 
his flock through the gloomy vale to reach 
pasture and shelter on the other side. Beyond 
our sorrows we shall find blessedness. The 
pain of earth will be forgotten in the joy of 
heaven, and the joy of heaven will be richer 
and sweeter because of earth's pain. 



CHAPTER XV. 
Refuge from Strife of Tongues. 

" For when the love we held too light 
Was gone away from our speech and sight, 

No bitter tears, 
No passionate words of fond regret, 
No yearning of grief could pay the debt 

Of thankless years. 

Oh, now, while this kind love lingers near, 
Grudge not the tender words of cheer, 

Leave none unsaid j 
For a heart can have no sadder fate 
Than some day to wake — too late — 

And find love dead !" 

There is a great deal of power for evil in 
human speech. Few people altogether escape 
the hurt of tongues. No name is pure enough 
to be forever safe against vile insinuations, cruel 
aspersions. Even Jesus, whose life was holy, 
harmless, separate from sinners, did not escape 
the slanderer's tongue. It is strange how much 
unloving speech there is in this world. On the 
smallest provocation men become angry, and 
speak violent words. Even those who profess 

189 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

to be Christ's too often lose control of their 
speech and say words which cut like swords. 
There are homes in which the principal talk is 
wrangling — the strife of tongues. There are 
children with tender souls, who grow up in 
the midst of worldly contentions, scarcely ever 
hearing a gentle or loving word. 

Then there is a strife of tongues around us, 
even when the words are not spoken against us. 
Think of all the speech one must hear as the 
days go by, speech that is not loving, helpful, 
encouraging, comforting. The gift of speech 
is one of the noblest that God has given to man. 
It was meant to be loving, true, wise, enriching, 
and full of blessing. God gave us our tongues 
that with them we might speak to him in prayer, 
praise and worship, and speak to our fellow-men 
in gladness, in love, in hope, in all helpful 
words. 

Our Lord has told us that for every idle word 
that men speak they must give account. For 
every idle word ! Notice that it is not for 
every sinful word, every bitter word, every 
false word, every impure word kindling unholy 
suggestions which may burst into flame and 
leave the whole life blackened. Of course, for 
such words, words that lead to sin, we must 
give account. But Jesus said that we must give 

190 



Refuge from Strife of Tongues 

account for every idle word we speak. Think 
of the idle words to which we have to listen ! 
What is the larger part of the conversation that 
goes on in parlors, in clubs, during walks and 
rides ? Is it wise, good, wholesome, useful 
talk ? Does it instruct, interest, inspire, stimu- 
late ? People chatter on forever and say not 
one word worth remembering. Yet we cannot 
get away from this strife of tongues. 

It is full of misrepresentations, too, reflections 
on the absent, innuendoes, suspicions, criticisms, 
censures. It is strange how much of the talk 
we hear is about the absent, and with what 
ruthless unconcern people say evil things of 
those who are not present to hear. Characters 
are discussed and dissected as if they were 
nothing more than bits of clay. Names are 
taken up and gossiping tongues whisper their 
hints of scandal even of those whom an hour 
before they were praising obsequiously. Repu- 
tations are blighted. It is the rarest thing that 
a full, hearty, honest word is spoken of any 
absent one. Evermore this sad chatter about 
people goes on in society. We cannot but hear 
it, for we are not deaf; but if we are honorable, 
charitable and true-hearted, these words hurt us. 
We need a refuge from them. 

" The strife of tongues !" How truly these 

191 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

words picture the life which is about every one 
of us ! And men and women with sensitive 
spirits grow weary of it, and long to flee away 
to some quiet retreat, where they shall no 
longer be hurt by the unending strife. So much 
inharmonious talk harms us. We grow tired 
of hearing criticism and fault-finding. It wor- 
ries and frets us to be nagged at continually. 
It pains us to know that those we have trusted 
as friends should have spoken of us with such 
careless tongue. It grieves us to learn that we 
have been misjudged, our motives misconstrued, 
our actions misunderstood, our own words per- 
verted and their meaning misrepresented. We 
get weary of all this, and sometimes wish we 
had wings like a dove, that we might fly away 
and be at rest. 

The same psalm that gives us the picture of 
the strife of tongues also unveils the refuge we 
want from all this confusion of words. 

" In the covert of thy presence shalt thou 

hide them from the plottings of man ; 
Thou shalt keep them secretly in a 

pavilion from the strife of tongues." 

God has provided a refuge into which we may 
flee, where we shall not be hurt by the strife 
of tongues. What is the refuge ? 

It is not by falling in ourselves with this 

192 



Refuge from Strife of Tongues 

stream of talk that we escape its hurt. That 
is our danger. When we are with those who 
have only idle words, empty chit-chat, on their 
tongues, it is easy for us to join them in the 
frivolous speech. When we hear others gossip- 
ing about their neighbors, telling bits of news, 
repeating derogatory stories, hinting suspicious 
things, we find it quite natural to enjoy it all 
and then to add our portion to the common 
stock. When we are among those who are 
saying unkindly things of another, casting ar- 
rows of censure, sneer or sarcasm at the good 
name of an absent person, making his faults a 
subject of conversation, holding a sort of clinic 
over his character, and dissecting it for their 
own wicked delight, how easily we slip into 
the same groove of talk, unless we are most 
watchful. 

Who has never caught himself laughing at 
the things people were saying about some dear 
friend of his, and even adding little bits which 
his own confidential relation of friendship had 
permitted him to learn about his friend ? Or 
when we find ourselves among those who are 
wrangling over questions, or quarreling about 
creeds or politics, or something else, it is not 
hard for us to take sides and wrangle as vigor- 
ously as the others. In a home where strife is 
n 193 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

going on we are always in danger of entering 
into and adding to the bitterness by our own 
excited and exciting words. 

This is not the refuge from the strife of 
tongues which God provides. It may be the 
easiest thing just to drop into the stream and 
drift with it, but we are only hurt if we do this 
thinking to save ourselves from the evil of other 
men's sins. We are deserting our colors and 
going over to the enemy. We may not surren- 
der to the strife of tongues to get clear of the 
pain the strife causes. We must be witnesses 
for Christ. If others all about us sin with their 
tongues, we must be sure that we honor our 
Master either in speech or by our silence. 

Nor may we seek a refuge from the strife of 
tongues by stoical indifference. If the talk we 
hear concerns ourselves and is condemnatory, 
we would do well first to ask whether it be 
true, whether the things said of us may not 
have at least some shadow of truth in them. 
It is well for many of us that we must live in 
an atmosphere of criticism. If others always 
spoke well of us, invariably commending us, it 
would make us proud and self-conceited. It is 
well for us that there always are those about 
us who are ready to see our faults and are not 
afraid to expose them. 

194 



Refuge from Strife of Tongues 

Francis Quarles said : " If any speak ill of 
thee, flee home to thine own conscience and 
examine thy heart. If thou be guilty, it is a 
just correction ; if not guilty, it is a fair in- 
struction. Make use of both. So shalt thou 
distill honey out of gall, and out of an open 
enemy create a secret friend." 

Nor is the divine refuge from the strife of 
tongues found in flight. It may be the easiest 
thing to take the wings of a dove and fly away. 
Men have run to the covert of the rocks and 
the caverns, to the convent or the monastery, to 
the hermit's cell, to escape this unhallowed strife. 
But that is not the way God wants us to do. He 
needs us in the heart of societv, for he desires 
us to witness for him. We are to let our light 
shine upon the world's darkness to dispel it. 
We are to live among those who are not good, 
to show them a pattern of true and beautiful 
living. You find yourself, for example, in an 
uncongenial home. The spirit of love has not 
been cultivated and there is a strife of tongues 
even in that sacred sanctuary. The uncongenial 
life is hurting you. You feel like fleeing from 
it. But probably it is your duty to stay there. 
You must therefore find your refuge in the 
midst of the very uncongenialities which make 
the home so hard a place for you to live. 

'95 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

The same is true of most of our environ- 
ments. We cannot flee out of them. Our 
duty requires us to stay where we are. God 
needs us where he has placed us. Flight from 
the environment would be flight from duty ; we 
should thus prove disloyal to our Master, and 
fail in our search for shelter. 

But there is a refuge which we can find in 
the very midst of the strife of tongues. They 
tell us that when the terrible cyclone sweeps 
over a country, there is a spot at its centre, 
which is so quiet and still that a leaf is scarcely 
stirred, where a baby might sleep undisturbed. 
So at the centre of the sorest strife we may find 
a pavilion, where no hurt can come to us. 

How can we find it ? First by having the 
peace of God in our own heart. If we are in 
right relations with God, his bosom is our refuge. 
In the time of strife we can always turn to him, 
and in his presence, in his love, our heart can 
be at rest. Then we must keep our heart ever 
warm and loving toward those who make the 
uncongenial environment. Nothing they do 
must disturb our love for them. If we live 
thus, we shall have a pavilion in which God 
will ever hide us from the strife of tongues. 
The strife will cause pain, but it will not mar 
the sweetness of our spirit. 

196 



Refuge from Strife of Tongues 

There are plants and flowers which grow in 
the early spring under the snow-drifts and are 
not hurt by the cold. So will the graces of the 
heart be kept tender, beautiful and sweet amid 
the harshest uncongenialities, even beneath un- 
kindnesses and cruelties, if we have this refuge 
of God's love into which to flee. 

One secret of security from the hurt of 
tongues is the keeping of love in the heart. 
Slanders or bitter words of any kind can harm 
us only when we yield to the feeling of resent- 
ment and anger. So long as we continue loving 
through all the strife, we are hidden away in a 
safe refuge. It is impatience that opens the door 
of the refuge and lets harm in. The sin is not 
in being tempted, but in yielding to the tempta- 
tion. Our Lord taught us to pray for those 
who despitefully use us and persecute us. While 
we pray for them, their cruel words have no 
power to hurt us. 

We have in Jesus Christ the highest example 
of the truth of this lesson. Never about any 
other life did the strife of words rage as it 
raged about him. Men's cruelty knew no limit. 
Poisoned tongues emptied their most envenomed 
bitterness about him. They uttered the vilest 
charges against him. They made the worst 
accusations against his character. They pursued 

197 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

him with the keenest malice. Falsehood did 
its worst in defaming him. But none of these 
things hurt him. He kept his sweetness of 
spirit, his serenity of soul, through all the strife 
of words. If we look at his refuge, we find 
that, first, he kept love in his heart through all 
the strife. He never grew impatient. No bit- 
terness ever entered his soul, no anger, no feel- 
ing of resentment. He never once returned 
hate for hate, but only and always love for 
hate. While the men were driving the nails in 
his hands and feet he was praying for them. 
" Father, forgive them." His love never ebbed 
for a moment. 

We can stay in God's pavilion and be safe 
from the hurt of the strife of tongues only 
when we keep ourselves in the love of God. 
If we grow angry and speak unadvisedly, or let 
our heart grow bitter and our lips utter words 
of unkindness or resentment, we have sinned. 
The strife has hurt us. We must love on and 
pray on and seek the good of those who are 
treating us so bitterly. 

The language of the psalm is very beautiful. 
" Thou shalt hide them" — thy children, thy 
believing ones, — " in the secret of thy presence, 
from the pride of man. Thou shalt keep them 
secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues." 

198 



Refuge from Strife of Tongues 

That is, when the world wrongs us, or assails 
us with its darts of evil, God hides us in the 
secret of his own presence. When a child 
comes in from the street,' alarmed, trembling, 
from the midst of evil that has threatened it, 
the mother draws it close to her own side, into 
the secret of her own presence, and holds it 
there until fear is quieted and all danger is 
passed. That is the way Christ does when his 
little ones are trembling and afraid in the midst 
of the strife of tongues. A New Testament 
word says, " Your life is hid with Christ in 
God." What need we care for the world's 
worst of rage, falsehood, calumny and unkind- 
ness, when we are thus hidden in God ! Men 
cannot hurt the stars by flinging stones at them ; 
the stars are hidden in God's heavenly refuge. 
No strife of tongues can hurt us, if we are in 
God's pavilion of love. 

We cannot get away from the assailing of 
men's tongues. We must hear much speech 
that hurts or wounds and much that wearies and 
saddens us. But we can be so hidden in Christ, 
so wrapped in the folds of his garments, so held 
in his heart of hearts, that the strife shall not 
touch us. He will hide us in the secret of his 
presence from the pride of man. He will keep 
us secretly in a pavilion, from the strife of 

199 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

tongues. There is ever need for fresh lessons 
on the duty of loving speech. We should do 
our part to quell the strife of tongues in this 
world. This we can do in some measure at 
least by guarding our own lips that they never 
add to the volume of this unseemly strife. We 
can fulfill our duty yet more adequately if we 
continually put into the stream of speech sweet 
words, wholesome words, words that will prove 
healing, inspiring, strengthening, encouraging. 
We never know the power of such words for 
good. They give happiness and cheer and 
make people better. 

There is always a mission for good words. 
Incalculable is their power to bless. Immeas- 
urable, too, is the possibility of helpfulness in 
these tongues of ours. Bitter will it be if it be 
found in the end that we have failed to use our 
speech to bless the world. There is need for 
hearty words in all human associations. We 
are afraid to say kind, appreciative things to 
each other, even to those we love the best. 
We keep the gentle thoughts sealed up along 
the years, till our friend is gone. Then by his 
coffin our lips are unsealed, when true words, 
warm with love, flow out. But of what use 
are they then ? We might as well keep them 
sealed up. 

aoo 



Refuge from Strife of Tongues 

" Year after year, with a glad content, 
In and out of our home he went — ■ 

In and out. 
Ever for us the skies were clear ; 
His heart carried the fret and fear, 

The care and doubt. 

Our hands held with careless hold 
All that he won of power and gold, 

In toil and pain. 
O dear hands that our burdens bore — 
Hands that shall toil for us no more — 

Never again ! 

Oh ! it was hard to learn our loss, 
Bearing daily the heavy cross — 

The cross he bore ; 
To say with an aching heart and head, 
* Would to God that our love now dead 

Were here once more !' " 



20 1 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Faithfulness. 

With God there is no great nor small 
Save as we yield him part or all. 
All that we are his claim demands — 
Spirit and brain and heart and hands j 
Then, be our lot however poor, 
Each dawn is as a welcome door ; 
Each humblest act the wondrous key 
Of infinite opportunity. 

Dora Read Goodale. 

No higher praise can be given to any life 
than to say it has been faithful. No one could 
ask for a nobler epitaph than the simple words, 
" He was faithful." This will be the commen- 
dation given in the great account to those who 
have made the most of their talents : " Thou 
hast been faithful." Faithfulness should there- 
fore be the aim in all our living. It is not great 
things that God expects or requires of us, unless 
he has given us great gifts and opportunities; all 
he requires is faithfulness. He gives us certain 
talents, puts us in certain relations, assigns to us 
certain duties, and then asks us to be faithful — 

202 



Faithfulness 

nothing more. The man with the plain gifts 
and the small opportunities is not expected to 
do the great things that are required of the man 
with the brilliant talents and the large oppor- 
tunities. 

We should get this truth fixed deeply in our 
mind, that God asks of no one anything more 
than simple faithfulness. Faithfulness is not the 
same in any two persons. In the man who has 
five talents there must be a great deal more out- 
come to measure up to the standard of faithful- 
ness than in the man who has but two talents. 
Faithfulness is simply being true to God and 
making the most of one's life. Of those who 
have received little, only little is required. 
Where much has been received much is re- 
quired. Never is anything impossible or un- 
reasonable expected of any one. If we are 
simply faithful, we shall please God. 

Jesus said of Mary, after her act of love, 
when men murmured at her, " She hath done 
what she could." What had she done ? Very 
little, we would say. She loved Jesus truly and 
deeply. Then she brought a flask of precious 
ointment and broke the flask, pouring the sacred 
nard upon her Lord's tired feet, those feet which 
soon were to be nailed to the cross. That was 
one of the ways love was shown in those days. 

203 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

What good did it do ? That was the question 
the disciples asked. We know it wonderfully 
comforted the Saviour's sorrowful heart. Amid 
almost universal hatred, here was one of his 
friends who believed in him still. Amid mad- 
ding enmity here was one who loved him. 
While other hands were weaving a crown of 
thorns for his brow, to be put on him five days 
hence, and others still were forging cruel nails 
to drive through his feet, Mary's hands were 
pouring ointment on his head and bathing his 
feet with the nard. Who will say that Mary's 
act did no good ? We cannot know how her 
sweet, pure, loyal love blessed that holy life in 
its anguish. It seemed a little thing, but little 
thing though it was, it gave the heart of Jesus 
a thrill of joy that made him stronger for all the 
dark, terrible days that followed, and for that 
blackest, terriblest day of all, when he hung on 
the cross. 

Call nothing little which gives comfort, 
strength, courage or cheer to a manly heart. 
A kindly hand-shake, when despair was wrap- 
ping a soul in folds of gloom, and driving it to 
madness, saved a life from suicide. A sympa- 
thetic word, when one was about to yield to a 
temptation which would have left shame, dis- 
honor and ruin, rescued a soul and saved it for 

204 



Faithfulness 

purity, beauty and heaven. We do not know 
what is little. What seems so small to us as to 
be almost insignificant, may have infinite and 
eternal consequences, when all its harvest of 
results are gathered up in the judgment. " She 
hath done what she could." That was blessed 
praise for Mary. That is all Christ asks of any 
of us — just the best we can do. He never asks 
anything we cannot do. 

But let us not forget that our Master always 
does expect and require of each of us what 
we can do — all that we can do. Faithful as a 
measure of requirement is not a pillow for in- 
dolence. It is not a letting down of obligations 
to a low standard, to make life easy. Faithful- 
ness is a lofty standard. " She hath done what 
she could" is the highest commendation any lips 
can ever speak. It meant that with her re- 
sources Mary could have done nothing better that 
hour, nothing that would have meant more to 
her Lord and Friend. The man with the one 
talent, who made no use of his talent, keeping 
it in a napkin, received no commendation, 
" Faithful servant !" He had done nothing 
with his life and he lost all that he had. Not 
to use what we have is to lose it. The stars in 
the heavens would rot, says some one, if they 
did not move. Less than our best is unfaithful- 

205 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

ness. With all Christ's patience he does re- 
quire of us our best. 

This divine law of faithfulness applies to all 
callings in life and to every kind of work. 
Some people try to make a separation between 
sacred and secular matters, as if religion applied 
only to part of a man's life. But there is a 
moral quality in everything that a moral being 
does. The judgment of God will take in not 
only specifically religious acts, but also all that 
belongs in one's business or trade. 

In a recent story* the young minister calls 
to see one of his members who is a shoemaker. 
He finds him busy at his work and sits down 
in his shop for a talk. " I am glad to see men 
who can use the humblest vocation for the glory 
of God, as you are doing," said the minister, 
as the conversation went on. The shoemaker 
replied saying there was no such thing in this 
wide world as a humble vocation. " You are 
a minister of the gospel, by the grace of God. 
I am a shoemaker, by the grace of God. If I 
make good shoes I shall get just as much credit 
in the hereafter as you will for being a faithful 
pastor. All work is noble and honorable." 

He went on to say that the minister would 

* Hiram Golf's Religion. 
206 



Faithfulness 

carry up to the judgment seat a fair sample of 
the sermons he had preached, and he, the shoe- 
maker, would carry up a fair sample of the 
shoes he had made. Both would be judged by 
the quality of their work. Goodness is good- 
ness, whether you find it in the mill-owner or 
in a spindle-tender. The old shoemaker picked 
up a pair of shoes which had been left for 
mending. " If that boy should catch cold 
some day and get pneumonia, his father, who 
is poor, would have a doctor's bill to pay, and 
might lose the child. I propose to mend the 
shoes as though my salvation depended on it. 
I can't afford, as a child of God, with a hope 
of heaven, to put poor work into that job, for 
much depends on it. I would not like to meet 
that boy up yonder and have him tell me he 
died because I was not a faithful shoemaker. 
Do you think a vocation is a humble one when 
it deals with the health and life of our fellow- 
creatures ?" 

A man is a plumber. Some one says " Re- 
ligion has nothing to do with plumbing." But 
really it has a great deal to do with it. The 
health of a family depends largely upon the 
character of the plumbing in their house. If 
it is defective, and typhoid fever or diphtheria 
creeps into the happy home, causing suffering 

207 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

and perhaps death, will God take no account 
of the plumber's negligence ? No matter how 
good a man he may be, how consistent in his 
life and character, how earnest in Christian ser- 
vice, he has proved unfaithful in the business of 
his life, bringing disaster upon a household. 

Or a man is a bricklayer. In building the 
flues in a house he is careless at one point, near 
the end of a wooden beam, not making his 
work perfectly safe. One night, years after- 
ward, there is a cry of fire in the house, and, 
in the terror and confusion, a child's life is lost. 
The origin of the fire was a defective flue. 
Was not the bricklayer responsible ? Should 
there be no religion in the work of the man on 
whose faithfulness the safety of our dwellings 
depends ? 

A carriage-builder uses flawed iron in an axle. 
The carriage is used for years by a family, 
bearing its precious burden without accident. 
Bat one day, in coming down a steep hill, one 
of the wheels strikes a stone and in the jarring 
the axle is broken, leading to a serious accident, 
in which several persons are injured. When 
the iron broke, the flaw was discovered. Is 
there no place for religion in carriage-building ? 
Is not the man who makes axles for carriages 
his brother's keeper? 

208 



Faithfulness 

We may apply the truth to the work of each 
man and woman. One works in a factory, one 
in a machine-shop, one in an office, one in a 
store, one in a school. One man is a physician, 
one a lawyer, one a merchant, one a mechanic, 
one a minister. Whatever our calling is, we 
cannot be wholly faithful to God unless we do 
our work as well as we can. To slur it is to 
do God's work badly. To neglect it is to rob 
God. The work of the universe is not quite 
complete without our part of its work well 
done, however small that part may be. The 
faithfulness which Christ requires must reach to 
the way the child gets his lessons and recites 
them ; to the way the dressmaker and the tailor 
sew their seams ; to the way the blacksmith 
welds the iron and shoes the horse ; to the 
way the carpenter builds his house ; to the way 
the clerk represents the goods and measures and 
weighs them. " Be thou faithful" rings from 
heaven in every ear, in every smallest piece of 
work we are doing. 

Another application of the lesson is to prom- 
ises. There are some people who make prom- 
ises freely, but as easily fail to keep them. 
Surely we ought to keep sedulous watch over 
ourselves in this regard. Parents and older 
persons need to think seriously of the eifect of 
o 409 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

failing to keep a promise made to a child. 
ft One of the keenest sorrows of childhood," 
says one, " is the disappointment that comes 
from unfulfilled promises. ... A promise care- 
lessly made to a child will often be cherished 
and depended on for many months, and when 
at last it bears no fruit, the child's soul receives 
a wound which is very slow to heal." It is told 
of Dr. Livingstone, that once he had promised to 
send some curiosities from Africa to a little boy 
in England, and had forgotten to do so. The 
boy's father was writing to Dr. Livingstone, 
and the little fellow added a postscript, remind- 
ing his friend of his promise. Dr. Livingstone 
was overwhelmed with dismay and confusion 
when he read the postscript. He hastened to 
repair the wrong he had done, and refers to the 
matter again and again, with evident pain, feel- 
ing sure, he says, that the boy would forgive 
him if he knew how much he had suffered by 
his fault. This great tenderness in the heart 
of the great missionary over his failure to keep 
his promise to the child shows the nobleness of 
his nature. 

It is told also of Sir William Napier, that 
when walking one day in the country, he met a 
little girl in sore distress over the breaking of a 
bowl she had been carrying. He comforted 

210 



Faithfulness 

the child by telling her that he would give her 
sixpence to buy another bowl. But he found 
he had no money, not even sixpence, in his 
pocket. He then promised to meet the child at 
the same hour the next day, at the same spot and 
to bring her the money. The child went away 
very happy. When Sir William reached home, 
however, he found an invitation to dine on the 
morrow with some distinguished people, whom 
he greatly wished to see. But he declined the 
invitation at once, telling his family of the 
promise he had made to the child, and saying, 
" I cannot disappoint her, for she trusted me 
implicitly." 

That is the true spirit of faithfulness. A 
promise made to a child, or to the lowliest or 
most unworthy person, should be kept, no mat- 
ter how hard it may be to keep it. One of the 
psalms gives as a mark of a good man, that 
when he sweareth, even to his own hurt, he 
changeth not. " I entirely forget my promise," 
one says, as if forgetting it were much less a sin 
than deliberately breaking it. We have no 
right to forget any promise we make to another. 
It is a noble thing to find one whom we can 
absolutely depend on, whose promise we are as 
sure of as we are of the rising sun, whose 
simplest word is as good as his oath, who does 

211 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

just what he says he will do, at the moment he 
says he will do it. 

In learning the lesson of faithfulness we need 
to train ourselves to unrelaxing self-discipline. 
We are in danger of being altogether too lenient 
with our faults and too tolerant of our sins, 
making too little of our failures and not holding 
ourselves rigidly to account. The only safety 
lies in habits of utmost exactness. It is related 
of a young book-keeper, that just as his summer 
vacation was about to begin, he found a mistake 
of eight cents in his accounts, which footed 
up half a million. Instead of going on his 
vacation the young man set to work to find the 
error. He found it, after two weeks' search, 
thus losing his entire vacation. His victory 
over himself made him ever after a stronger 
man. If there were more of such self-discipline 
there would be fewer failures and wrecks of 
character. 

Judge Tourgee, in one of his books, tells of 
a young soldier, scarce a month from his peace- 
ful home, standing now in the excitement of 
the field, and asking in a tense whisper, with 
white, quivering lips, " Do you think there will 
be a battle ?" Almost as he spoke there leaped 
from a wooded crest, near by, flashing tongues 
of flame, that brought death to hundreds. Later 

212 



Faithfulness 

in the terrible struggle, this brave boy was still 
at his post. The weakened line was wavering, 
however, and the lad's brother, an old veteran, 
saw it and rushed for an instant from his post 
of duty, and sought along the trembling line for 
the boy he loved as his own soul. As his eyes 
fell upon him, faithful still, he laid his hand 
upon the lad's shoulder and said : " Be a man, 
John." The tide of battle ebbed and flowed, 
and when the moon rose after that tumultuous 
day, its pale beams shone on John's face, white 
and cold, lying where he had stood, his feet the 
very foremost in the pallid ranks toward the foe. 
We are all in a battle which will not end for 
us until, in our turn, the moon's beams shine 
down upon each of our faces, as we sleep on 
the field. We must be faithful. Then at the 
end, when we stand before God, and make 
report of what we have done, we shall hear the 
approving word : " Thou hast been faithful." 
It will be better to have that at the close of life 
— " Thou hast been faithful" — than to wear 
earth's brightest crown, and be unfaithful — 
failing God. 



213 



CHAPTER XVII. 

The Law of Use and Disuse. 

We thank thee, Master of our lives, to whom 

At last we all, from varying earthly task, 

Shall render our account, that thou wilt ask 

No trivial daily record as we come ; 

That what we gain in thoughts and deeds of love 

Throughout our service, be it long or short, 

Is the one record that shall then be brought 

To test our fitness for the life above. 

To us the weary hours and days seem now 

Too often but an idle tale. We grieve 

O'er passing moments and forget that thou 

Dost reckon not by time, and that thy love, 

In summing up our human lives at last, 

Will count the heart-throbs, not the moments passed. 

Mary G. Slocum. 

We are doing business in this world for 
Christ. Each one of us has something of his, 
a pound, which he has entrusted to us to trade 
with as his agent. Our life itself, with all 
its powers, its endowments, its opportunities, 
its privileges, its blessings, is our pound. We 
are not our own. We are not in this world 
merely to have a good time for a few years. 

214 



The Law of Use and Disuse 

Life is a trust. We are not done with it when 
we have lived it through to its last day. We 
must render an account of it to him who gave 
it to us. Our business is to show gains through 
our trading with our Lord's money. We are 
required to make the most possible of our life. 

People often speak of the solemnity of dying. 
But it is a great deal more solemn thing to live. 
Dying is only giving back into God's hand his 
own gift, — life, — and if we have lived well, 
dying is victory, is glory, the trampling of life's 
opaque dome to fragments, as our soul bursts 
into blessedness. But it is living that is serious 
and solemn. Life, to its last particle, is our 
Lord's property entrusted to us to be used so 
that it shall grow. Then comes the judgment, 
with its accounting and its rewards. We shall 
have to look up into our Lord's face and tell 
him what we have done with the pound, the 
life that has been entrusted to us to keep and to 
use. 

The Lord does not put a large amount of his 
money into the hand of any one to begin with 
— only one pound, as the parable has it. It is 
not much, but it is as much as we are capable 
of using well at first, until we have acquired 
more experience. Besides, it is enough to test 
our faithfulness. If we do well with the little, 

2I 5 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

he will trust us with more. Doing business 
with a small amount also trains us so that by 
and by we may care for a larger sum. Most 
successful business men had very little to begin 
with. They handled the little well, and it 
increased into more. Meantime, the men them- 
selves grew into greater ability and wisdom, 
through experience, until now they manage a 
large business as easily as at first they managed 
the little they had. 

It is the same in all life. The child at school 
has but little mental ability, but it has enough 
to begin with, enough to show its spirit and test 
its faithfulness. If it uses the little well, the 
ability will increase. God gives into no man's 
hand at the beginning a finely-trained, fully- 
developed mind. The great poets, artists, phi- 
losophers and writers of the world began with 
only one pound. Christ gives no one at the 
start a noble, full-statured Christian character, 
with spiritual graces all blossoming out. The 
most saintly Christian began with very little 
saintliness. The most useful man in the church 
began with a very small and imperfect sort of 
usefulness. Those whose influence for good 
now touches thousands of lives, extends over 
whole communities or fills an entire country, 
or the world, had nothing to begin with but one 

216 



The Law of Use and Disuse 

little pound of capacity, which the Master en- 
trusted to them. 

The growth of the life depends upon the 
degree of energy and faithfulness shown by each 
person. In the parable, one man's pound made 
ten pounds more. Another's made five pounds. 
The first of these men is a type of those who 
make the most possible of their life. This man 
did not fret because he had so little to begin 
with. He began with enthusiasm, with energy, 
and with the utmost diligence and fidelity, to 
make the most of his one pound. As he used 
it, it increased. The increase he also used and 
the money grew until when his lord returned 
he laid down at his feet a gain of a thousand 
per cent. 

The high places in life have not come to men 
by chance or by any providential partiality in 
the distribution of the gifts and favors of life. 
They have all been won by energy, faithfulness 
and toil. 

We find these ten-pound servants also among 
the followers of Christ. They are those Chris- 
tians who, from the beginning, strive to reach 
the best things in divine grace. They set their 
ideal of obedience to Christ at the mark of 
perfectness. They seek to follow Christ with 
their whole heart. They are faithful to every 

217 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

duty without regard to its cost. They strive 
to be like Christ in all the elements and features 
of his character. They give their whole energy 
to the work and service of Christ. So these 
men and women grow at last into a saintliness, 
a spiritual beauty, and a power of usefulness 
and of influence, by which they are set apart 
among Christians, shining with brighter lustre 
than other stars in the galaxy. Their one 
pound has made other ten. 

The other servant whose pound made five 
pounds also did well, but not so well as the 
first. He did not do all that he might have 
done with his lord's money. He was not so 
earnest as his fellow-servant, not so active, not 
so diligent, not so unsparing in toil, not so per- 
sistent in endeavor, not so heroic in conquering 
obstacles and difficulties. This man is a type 
of a great mass of people in the world. They 
are good, but not so good as they might have 
been. They do well with their life, but not so 
well as they might have done. They might 
have made ten pounds for their Lord, while 
they made only five. 

It is so in trades and all business. Many are 
satisfied just to get along. They work as few 
hours as possible. They are self-indulgent. 
As a consequence they make little progress 

218 



The Law of Use and Disuse 

through the years. They are no better work- 
men, no better business men, no better physi- 
cians or preachers, at fifty than they were at 
thirty. They are fairly prosperous, but they 
do not do their best. The same is true in 
schools. There are many who do well, but 
who might do far better. They are easy-going, 
indisposed to toil and struggle. They come at 
last with five pounds' gain in their hand, when 
they might have brought ten. Many people do 
not make the most possible of their spiritual 
gifts and privileges. They grow in grace, but 
their path might have been like the shining light. 
They might have more of the Holy Spirit in 
their hearts, more of the gentleness, the sweet- 
ness, the beauty of the Lord, in their lives. 
They might be of more use to Christ. They 
bring five pounds' increase when they might 
have brought ten. 

The principle on which the rewards of life 
are given may be called the law of use. One 
man brought his ten pounds gained by diligent 
and faithful using of the one which had been 
entrusted to him to trade with. He had shown 
such ability and fidelity in caring for the little 
that had been left in his hands, that his lord 
now put more of his interests in his keeping. 
He had done well with money : now the care 

219 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

of cities was entrusted to him. That is, one 
who does well with a small trust is rewarded 
with a larger one ; and the reward is propor- 
tionate to the diligence and faithfulness one has 
shown in the smaller trust. 

The law of increase is the law of use. " Thy 
pound hath made ten pounds more." By using 
the little we have, we get more. This is true 
in all life. It is true in the business world. 
The poor boy uses his first shilling wisely and 
soon has two shillings. He goes on investing, 
trading, toiling, and his money grows until he 
is a millionaire. It is the same in mental 
growth. The young people start in school 
with nothing. They struggle with hard prob- 
lems, year after year, until at last they come out 
with trained minds, disciplined powers. Use 
has brought its reward. The same prevails in 
spiritual life. The way to get more love is 
to love : love grows by loving. The way to 
become stronger in resisting evil and overcoming 
temptation is always to resist and to conquer. 
Every battle we win makes us braver and a 
better soldier. Every effort we make lifts us a 
little nearer to God. 

The way to become more gentle and loving 
is to keep our heart's affections always in exer- 
cise. A kind feeling put into an act does not 

220 



The Law of Use and Disuse 

exhaust the kindness and empty the fountain, 
but leaves more kindness in the heart. A young 
man finds it hard to rise in a meeting and read 
one verse or offer a prayer of one sentence. 
He does his duty, however, and soon he is an 
acceptable speaker, and in a few years he is 
preaching the gospel with eloquence and power. 
Use developed his gifts. 

The building of character should be our 
central aim in life. Business, school, home, 
church, reading, pleasure, struggle, work, sor- 
row — all are but means to the one end. It 
matters little how much money a man made 
last year, but it is of vital importance what 
mark last year's business made upon his char- 
acter. The increase of one's fortune is of but 
small importance in comparison with the growth 
of one's manhood. Everything we do leaves an 
impression upon us as well as on the work we 
are doing. We are building life all the while. 
The thing we do may be a blessing in the world, 
but apart from this it affects ourself. A man's 
work may fail ; yet even in failure the work on 
his character goes on. If we do our very best, 
though nothing else may come of it in the world, 
yet in ourselves there cannot but be noble result. 
Faithfulness and energy never fail of their re- 
ward in character, even though the hands be 

221 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

empty when life is done. " He that doeth the 
will of God abideth forever." The reward 
comes in the doing, not in what we gather in 
our doing : 

" In the strength of the endeavor, 
In the temper of the giver, 
In the loving of the lover, 
Lies the hidden recompense. 

In the sowing of the sower, 
In the fading of the flower, 
In the fleeting of each hour, 
Lurks eternal recompense." 

Thus it is that using produces growth, in- 
crease. Use what you have, and it will become 
more. Trade with your pound and it will mul- 
tiply. The law of growth is the law of use. 
So we see that the reward that God gives for 
faithfulness is not ease, but enlarged responsi- 
bility. So long as we do well what God wants 
us to do, and are faithful in what of his he 
entrusts to us, he still gives us more duty and 
adds to our stewardship. 

Then loss comes through disuse. One man 
brought his pound, carefully wrapped up. He 
had done nothing with it. This man is not 
described as specially wicked. He was not 
condemned for what he did, but for what he did 



222 



The Law of Use and Disuse 

not. He did not use his gift in harming others. 
He did not misuse God's gift. His sin lay in 
not using. He did not embezzle. He did not 
gamble away his pound. He did not waste it 
in any foolish speculation. He kept it securely. 
One day the master came again. The servants 
were all called to report what they had gained 
with the portions left in their hands. Then 
this poor man hunted up his pound and brought 
it out from its hiding-place. Unrolling the 
napkin, there was the money, bright, shining 
gold, undimmed. " Here is thy pound which 
I kept." But that was not what the Lord 
wanted — he wanted gains made by trading. So 
the pound was taken away from the servant who 
had made no use of it. 

Here then we get our lesson. Not to use is 
to lose. The penalty upon uselessness is the 
loss of power to be useful. There is an Ori- 
ental story of a merchant who gave to each of 
two friends a sack of grain to keep till he should 
call for it. Years passed, and at last he claimed 
his property. One of his friends led him to a 
field of waving grain, and said : " This is all 
yours." The other took him to a granary, and 
pointed out to him as his a rotten sack full of 
wasted grain. Use yielded a golden harvest and 
honor. Disuse yielded only decay and dishonor. 

2^3 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

It is something appalling to think of the possi- 
bilities of people's minds — faculties which by- 
proper use might have been developed to bril- 
liant power, but which, because never developed 
by use, have lain wrapped up in a napkin and 
at last have perished altogether in the brain. 
Men fail to exercise their spiritual vision and 
live in darkness, until their soul's eyes die out 
and they cannot see spiritual things if they 
would. Not to love God in life's earlier days 
takes away from the heart at length the power 
to love him. This is the solution of that mys- 
tery of the hardening of the heart which per- 
plexes so many Bible readers. Long-time shut- 
ting of the heart against God leaves it incapable 
of opening. The power to love, unexercised, 
dies out. 

There is a truth here which ought to startle 
us, if we are not living at our very best. Not 
to believe on Christ — continuance in unbelief 
and rejection — is at length to lose the power to 
believe. Not to lift up the heart and the eyes 
to God — continuance in thus turning away from 
God — is at length to be incapable of loving God. 
Not to follow the Christ — persistence in refusing 
to be his disciple — is at length to find one's self 
unable, even under the most fearful pressure of 
judgment and eternity, to become even Christ's 

224 



The Law of Use and Disuse 

lowliest follower. The spiritual powers long 
unused die out, and then a man is dead while he 
lives. 

In the Koran there is a story of certain dwell- 
ers by the Dead Sea to whom Moses was sent 
with messages from God. But they sneered at 
him and refused to listen to his message. When 
next found, the Koran says, they had all become 
apes. By not using their souls they lost them. 



225 



CHAPTER XVIII. 
Prayer for Divine Searching. 

Lord, many times I am aweary quite 

Of my own self, my sin and vanity j 
Yet be not thou, or I am lost outright, 
Weary of me. 

And hate against myself I often bear, 

And enter with myself in fierce debate j 
Take thou my part against myself, nor share 
In that just hate. 

Best friends might loathe us, if what things perverse 

We know of our own selves they also knew j 
Lord, Holy One ! if thou who knowest worse, 
Should loathe us, too ! 

Archbishop Trench. 

In one of the psalms there is an intense 
and deeply* earnest prayer for divine searching : 
" Search me, O God, and know my heart : try 
me, and know my thoughts : and see if there 
be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the 
way everlasting." If we make this prayer sin- 
cerely, out of our heart, it will bring us into very 
close quarters with God. It will open every 

226 



Prayer for Divine Searching 

chamber, every corner, every nook and cranny 
of our life to the eye that is omniscient. 

It takes courage to pray this prayer. Not all 
men can do it. Many people fear to look into 
their own heart. If by some divine flash we 
were made to see ourselves as we are, all the 
evil that is in us, all the hideous things that lurk 
in the depths of our being, our faces would 
blanch into deathly paleness. 

It takes boldness to ask God to search one's 
inner life and show one one's sins. It takes 
honesty, too, to pray this prayer. It means 
that every wrong thing we find in our heart, 
under the calcium light of God's word and 
Spirit, we will give up and cast out. Some 
people do not want to find their sins, because 
they do not want to give them up. We cannot 
pray this prayer if we are not willing and eager 
to have Christ save us from whatever evil way, 
whatever sinful habit, feeling, disposition, or 
temper we discover in ourselves. 

There is another thing to mark in this prayer. 
We ask God to search us. An ancient, much- 
praised maxim was, " Know thyself." But no 
man can really know himself, in the depths of 
his being, unless God holds the lamp to shine in 
the darkness. None but God can search us and 
show us to ourselves. 

227 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

This is not a prayer that our neighbors may 
search us. Men are willing enough, ofttimes, 
to judge their fellow-men, to expose their faults, 
and proclaim their sins. It is easier for most 
of us to confess other people's sins than our 
own. The Pharisee was quite free in searching 
the publican and declaring his wrong-doings, 
though he said nothing of his own. We might 
find those who would be willing to search us 
and point out our blemishes, but this is not 
what we are taught to do. Men's judgments 
are imperfect, sometimes uncharitable, even un- 
just. There are lives that go down under men's 
condemnation whom love would save. At the 
best, men are only very partial judges. They 
cannot see our motives, and ofttimes they con- 
demn as wrong that which is noble and beauti- 
ful ; or they approve as right and praiseworthy 
that which before God is unworthy. It is not 
enough to ask men to search us and to try us. 
If they should approve and commend us their 
approval might be of no value to us. 

But there is One who is perfect in wisdom, 
love and righteousness, and whose judgments 
are unerring. We should always want to know 
what he thinks of our acts, words and thoughts. 
Though all the world applaud what we do, 
and praise us without stint, if on his face there 

228 



Prayer for Divine Searching 

is no mark of approval — if we see there the 
shadow of disapproval, what a mockery is men's 
applause ! If the world sneer, condemn and 
blame ; if men have only scorn and reproach ; 
and if meanwhile, turning our eyes toward the 
heavenly throne, we see in the divine face the 
smile of approval, what need we care for the 
frowns of men ? It is to God we should turn 
for the searching of our life. No human 
approval can bless when he does not bless. No 
human sentence can bind when he sets at liberty. 
It is better always to fall into the hands of 
God than into the hands of men. God is 
kindlier and juster than men. Nobody under- 
stands us as Christ does. Nobody knows our 
infirmities as Christ knows them, and no one has 
such patience with them as he has. He knows 
human life — this blessed Lord of ours — by actual 
experience. He was tempted in all points like 
as we are ; he knows how hard it is to resist 
temptation and to be good. He knows all the 
elements that enter into human struggle, and 
therefore is fitted for sympathy. We need not 
be afraid to open our heart to him, for he will 
never be unjust with us. We need not fear to 
ask him to search us, for if we truly desire to 
give up our sins when we discover them, we 
shall find him most merciful and gracious. 

229 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

All our life is open to God's eye. The old 
psalm makes this wonderfully clear. " Thou 
knowest my down-sitting and mine uprising." 
God's eye is upon us in our every movement, 
in our resting and in our working. f e Thou 
understandest my thought afar off." He knows 
our thought not only when it has taken final 
form, but in its first dim rising. He sees the 
whole working of our mind, all our imagina- 
tions, feelings, desires, the secret springs of our 
heart, out of which flow all the streams of 
thought, fancy, wish and act. Sometimes we 
come to the brink and look down into the 
depths of our own being, and we see things that 
there appal us. We get glimpses of motives 
which seem to blot the beauty of our fairest 
deeds. We see shadowy shapes of evil lurking 
there that are hideous to our eyes. We find 
in the abysses of our own nature possibilities of 
sin that startle us. But all that our eyes see in 
our hearts, even in glimpses, God sees contin- 
ually, and far more. He knows us infinitely 
better than we can know ourselves. 

" Thou searchest out my path and my lying down, 
And art acquainted with all my ways. 
For there is not a word in my tongue, 
But, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether." 

God does not have to wait, as our neighbors 

230 



Prayer for Divine Searching 

do, until we speak to know what is in our mind. 
The silent man may conceal his thoughts from 
his fellows, but he cannot conceal them from 
God. Unspoken thoughts are open to him. 
Words may hide the truth, disguise it or color 
it, but God knows the real thought that is in 
the word. Neither in the depths of the blue 
heavens, nor in the dark abyss of the grave, can 
one hide away from God. If we could take 
the morning sunbeams for wings and fly away 
on them with all the swiftness of light to the 
remotest bounds of space, we could not get 
beyond the reach of the divine eye. If we 
creep into darkness so deep and dense that no 
human eye can see us, still God sees us as clearly 
as if we stood in the bright noon-day sunshine. 
Darkness hides not from him. Night shines to 
his eye as brightly as day. 

To many people this thought of God's om- 
niscience is one to produce only fear and terror. 
They wish they could hide from him, or veil 
their life from him, and flee to some place where 
he could not find them. They do not think of 
this truth as a comforting one, but as one to 
alarm them. To those who are living in sin, 
unreconciled to God, it surely is full of startling 
terror. Sin always wants to hide from God. 
But to believers in Christ this truth of the om- 

231 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

niscience of God is one of great comfort. It is 
divine love that knows all our thoughts afar off 
and our words before they are spoken, and that 
besets us behind and before. When we are told 
that we cannot flee from God's presence nor be 
in any place where he is not, it is meant to be 
a comfort. No greater blessing could be im- 
agined than this. We can never be cast beyond 
the reach of his eye, nor out of his presence, 
nor beyond the clasp of his love. If by some 
sudden calamity we should be swept away to 
the uttermost parts of the earth, where no human 
friend can see us, we would still find God there, 
and his hand would lead us, and his right hand 
would hold us. Thus the truth is one of im- 
measurable comfort and blessing to us. 

The psalm speaks also of the preciousness of 
God's thoughts toward his people. It is won- 
derful that the great God should think about us 
at all. It seems impossible, when we remember 
his holiness and our sinfulness, his glory and our 
littleness, that he should ever think of us. It is 
pleasant for us to learn that some one on earth 
whom we esteem highly has been thinking about 
us. The greater the person is, the more honored 
and distinguished among men, the more does it 
mean to us to discover that he has been thinking 
about us, that he is interested in us, that he cares 

232 



Prayer for Divine Searching 

for us in our need and trouble, and that he has 
been planning and thinking for our good. 

The most shining hour in any life is the one 
in which the truth breaks upon the consciousness 
that God loves, when one can say, " God loves 
me." One of the sweetest comforts that ever 
comes to any one on earth is the revelation, 
" God is thinking about me as really as ever my 
mother did." It is true, too. God thinks about 
us. He is our Father, and cannot but think of 
his children. Nor is it a mere occasional thought 
that he gives to us; more in number than are the 
sands are his thoughts toward us. No earthly 
father thinks about his best beloved child so 
often as he goes about, busy in the affairs of his 
life, as God thinks of each one of us, even when 
caring for all the worlds. When we are in joy 
he thinks of us, watches us and breathes his 
benedictions into our gladness. When we are 
in danger, he thinks about us, and reaches out 
his hand to deliver us. When we are in sorrow, 
he thinks of us, pitying us as a father pities his 
child, comforting like a mother, with compas- 
sionate love. 

One who was wrecked tells how he clung in 
the water to a piece of a mast, but floating off 
in the waves was soon utterly alone in the midst 
.of the sea. He says the sense of his utter lone- 

2 33 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

liness was the most awful element in his expe- 
rience in those dreadful hours. In all the wide 
expanse there was no eye to see him, no heart 
to give him a thought of care or pity. But 
God's eye saw him even there ; God thought 
about him. Wherever we are, in whatever 
loneliness, in whatever distress or danger, we 
may say, " I am poor and needy ; yet the Lord 
thinketh upon me." 

No doubt there are things in us of which 
God does not approve. His eyes see blots in 
our fairest deeds. It is said that the finest pol- 
ishing men can give to steel, to a needle, for 
example, reveals, under a microscope, rough- 
nesses and irregularities which greatly mar its 
perfectness. So, to God's eye, the most lovely 
human life reveals many flaws and blemishes. 
No doubt our most devout worship has in it 
much sin. Our most unselfish love is stained 
by selfishness. Our best work is blotched by 
evil. A painter saw an ugly stain on the wall 
he had been frescoing. He took a wet cloth to 
remove it, but the cloth was itself soiled and 
left a blotch worse than that the painter had 
sought to remove. May it not be so with much 
of our work on other lives ? Our own hands 
are unclean, and they stain where we thought to 
cleanse and leave touches of beauty. We know 

234 



Prayer for Divine Searching 

enough of our own heart to be sure that all is 
not with us as it ought to be. Are we willing 
to have God search us and try our thoughts ? 
Then are we willing to put away all the evil 
that God, by his word and Spirit, may disclose 
to us in ourselves ? 

If we are truly seeking to be fashioned into 
the divine image, nothing must be allowed to 
remain in our life which is not entirely in har- 
mony with the divine thought for us. The 
smallest flaw that we discover must be taken 
out. The least speck of fault must be corrected. 
The most minute line of new possible likeness 
to Christ that we discern we must seek to put 
into our character. We should be eager, there- 
fore, always, to have God search us, that we 
may be led ever upward toward holier life. 

It is one of the infinite blessings of our life 
that God does search us and try our ways. If 
he did not we should never get home. In our 
lives, at the best, there is a great deal of chaff 
to a very little wheat ; if the chaff is not gotten 
out in some way, we shall never be fit for God's 
garner. Winnowing may be a painful process, 
but it is a blessed one, for in the end it leaves 
us cleansed and prepared for the holy life of 
heaven. So when God searches us and winnows 
us, we should be humble and quiet before him, 

*35 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

submitting to him. We should continually make 
our prayer to him that he would search us and 
try us, and see if there be any wicked way in 
us, and then lead us in the way everlasting. 

" Thou Searcher of all hearts, look down and see, 
Not if the chaff doth most abound in me, 
But if there be a tithe of grain for thee — 
A tithe for thee, in all the unfruitful place ! 
All the day long before the winds of grace 
My chaff upriseth in thy patient face. 
My lying down, my path, my ways how poor, 
My wasted moments husks bestrew my floor j 
And still thou searchest by the garner door. 
Content to stoop, if so upon the ground 
One grain of truth, one ear of love be found, 
So doth thy patience, dearest Lord, abound !" 



236 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Remembering Christ's Words. 

They fear not life's rough storms to brave, 
Since thou art near and strong to save ; 
Nor shudder e'en at death's dark wave, 

Because they cling to thee. 
Blest is my lot whate'er befall 5 
What can disturb me, who appal ; 
While, as my strength, my rock, my all, 

Saviour, I cling to thee ? 

Charlotte Elliott. 

Memory is a wonderful faculty. It is a hand 
that writes down on an invisible scroll a record 
of all the things we do, all the thoughts that 
pass through our mind, all the impressions that 
are made upon us. Memory is meant to give 
us great pleasure. It would gather into the 
storehouses of the soul all the precious things 
of the passing years and keep them there forever. 
The joys of childhood are thus treasured, to 
shed their sweetness on the life in the times of 
toil, care and sorrow, which come in the later 
years. The glad things in the days of youth 
and sunshine are stored away to become lamps 

237 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

to shine when it grows dark outside, or to be 
like singing-birds in the bosom when earth's 
music is hushed. 

It is wonderful how sweet memories of better 
days mitigate the sorrows and pains of life when 
misfortune or trial has stripped off the things 
that gave joy. There is a story of a young 
man who was informed that in a few months he 
must become blind, and who instantly set out to 
find and look upon the loveliest things in the 
world, that in his days of darkness he might 
have the memories of the beautiful scenes to 
cheer him. 

Thus memory may help us to prepare for 
times of sorrow by gathering up the sunshine and 
storing it away in our heart. The great coal- 
fields in the earth are only memories of wonder- 
ful ages in the past, when vast forests and dense 
masses of vegetation grew and fell into the 
ground and were covered up and there held in 
store for service in these later ages. Now the 
treasured sunshine lights and warms our homes. 
Like service does memory perform when it 
holds in its storehouses the beautiful things of 
life's bright summer days, to give light and 
warmth when winter comes with its long nights 
and its cold and storm. 

But memory stores up the bitter with the 

238 



Remembering Christ's Words 

sweet. If we live negligently, carelessly, sin- 
fully, we lay up recollections which can cause 
only sorrow, pain and shame. The secret of a 
happy life is a well-watched past. Every to-day 
is the harvest of yesterday. The only way to 
make to-morrow's memories rich and sweet is 
to live to-day a pure, obedient, gentle, unselfish, 
helpful life. 

There is an exhortation which says, " Re- 
member the words of the Lord Jesus." To 
remember in this sense, is also to keep, to do, 
to obey. It does one little good merely to 
remember the words which Christ speaks, and 
not to take them into the heart and life. There 
is not a line of truth in the Bible which is not 
meant in some way to affect the life and charac- 
ter. Bible teachings are the gleams of heaven's 
light touching the earth. There is not a truth 
in the Bible which, if received into the heart, 
will not leave its impress in some way upon 
the spirit, the life, the disposition, the conduct, 
the character. 

What becomes of all the sermons ? Many 
of tls hear at least two every Sabbath. Every 
sermon ought to be a message from God. The 
preacher is God's messenger, or he is nothing. 
If he speaks only his own words and does not 
speak for God, he is not a preacher. They 

^39 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

must be words of life, too, which he speaks. 
" The words that I speak unto you," said Jesus, 
" they are spirit, and they are life." 

God's word is compared by the great Teacher 
to seed. What follows when the sower goes 
over his field and scatters his good seed upon 
the ground ? He seems to be only throwing it 
away. But in each of the little golden grains is a 
secret of life, that, when the seed becomes soft 
in the earth, puts out a little point, a tiny sprig, 
which becomes by and by a stem that shoots 
up into a stalk of wheat. In the season of 
harvest the field bears its burden of golden grain. 

Jesus tells us what becomes of the sermons. 
Not all the good seed grows into its appropriate 
harvest. There are four different ways of re- 
ceiving the good seed. There are wayside 
hearers. The ground is trodden down into 
hardness by many passing feet, until it cannot 
receive the seed. The golden grains fall upon 
it, but lie there uncovered and the birds come 
and take them away. There are stony-ground 
hearers. A thin layer of surface-soil receives 
the seed and at once it springs up. But the hot 
sun blazes down on the place, the thin soil is 
soon dried, and the green shoots are soon with- 
ered and dead. There are the thorny-ground 
hearers. The soil is good, rich and deep, and 

240 



Remembering Christ's Words 

the seed grows luxuriantly. But the ground 
contains also roots of briers and thorns, and the 
same rich soil which produces rapid growth in 
the wheat, fosters also the quicker growing of 
these briers and thorns, and the wheat is soon 
so choked that only poor, starved, shriveled 
grains form on the stalk, none of them growing 
to perfection. There is also good ground, un- 
trodden, deep-ploughed, clean of the roots .of 
other things. On this soil the seed grows into 
luxuriance and the harvest waves at length — 
many times the sowing being reaped from the 
field. 

What becomes of the seed depends on the 
soil. What becomes of the sermons depends 
on the hearers. There are hearts like the way- 
side, trodden down by passing feet, so that no 
holy word or thought of God finds entrance 
into them. There are rocky hearts, emotional, 
promising well for a little while, but not enduring 
temptation and trial. There are thorny hearts 
in which grow the roots of other things that 
choke out the divine seeds. No fruit of the 
Spirit ripens to anything beautiful in them. 

This parable tells what comes of a great deal 

of the holy seed that is scattered on the earth. 

Nothing comes of it. The birds get it ; the 

heat withers it ; briers and thorns choke it. 

q 241 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

But there are also hearts that receive the words 
of truth, keep them, nourishing them into 
growths which yield a rich harvest. 

We must not forget that all this hearing of 
the truth leaves a record. There has been in- 
vented a curious little machine which, when 
placed in the rear of a railway-car, registers on 
a strip of paper every motion of the car, every 
curve of the track, every unevenness, every de- 
cayed or sunken sleeper, every fragment of the 
history of the train's movement, from the mo- 
ment it starts till it stops. There is something 
in each human life that, in like manner, registers 
all that goes on in the life, every day, every 
year. It marks all our privileges and oppor- 
tunities. It tells of every sermon we hear, 
every good word that falls upon our ear, every 
shining upon us of the face of Christ, every call 
to duty, every warning and exhortation, every 
touch upon our life by the hand of Christ, every 
influence of friendship, and it also shows our 
response to all these influences. It is well that 
we consider what kind of autobiography we are 
writing these passing days. What does memory 
enshrine of the words of Christ which we have 
heard ? None of us know how these living 
words have wrought in our lives. If it were 
possible to obliterate from our character all that 

242 



Remembering Christ's Words 

they have done in us, we should then see what 
we owe to them. The sun is not so much to 
the planets as these words of Christ are to our 
lives. 

Think of the comfort we have gotten in sorrow, 
the light that has made our darkness bright with 
hopes and has filled our night with stars. Think 
of the lines of beauty which the words of Christ, 
like the pencils of a great artist, have left in our 
lives. We never shall know in this world all 
that the words of Christ have done in us and 
tor us. Then we cannot know what shall be 
the influence of these words, repeated by us, on 
others who may hear them. 

" Never a word is said 

But it trembles in the air, 
And the truant voice has sped 

To vibrate everywhere ; 
And perhaps far off in eternal years 
The echo may ring upon our ears." 

Perhaps we have resisted the influence of 
Christ's words in our lives. Some of us grieve 
over the stained pages, the blotted lines, the 
failures to be sweet in the time of provocation, 
to be patient in trial. Christ understands it all. 
He knows how the lesson has been missed. But 
he is also our Teacher. He says, " Come unto 
me ; iearn of me," and he never grows impatient 

243 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

of our slow-learning, even of our failures. Here 
is a little story with a lesson. A teacher says : 

He came to my desk with a quivering lip — 

The lesson was done. 
" Dear teacher, I want a new leaf," he said : 

" I have spoiled this one." 
In place of the leaf so stained and blotted, 
I gave him a new one all unspotted, 

And into his sad eyes smiled — ■ 

" Do better now, my child." 

I went to the Throne with a quivering soul — 

The old year was done. 
'* Dear Father, hast thou a new leaf for me? 

I have spoiled this one." 
He took, the old leaf stained and blotted, 
And gave me a new one all unspotted, 

And into my sad heart smiled — 

" Do better now, my child." 

Remembering Christ's words sweetens the 
life. It keeps the thoughts always fragrant. A 
drawer was opened and a delicious perfume 
stole out and filled the room. A grain of musk 
in the drawer was the secret of it all. So the 
words of Christ, hidden in a human heart, 
sweeten all the life. A writer tells the story 
of a young girl whose spirit grew so wondrously 
beautiful and gentle, the secret being that one 
little verse of Scripture was lying like a rich 

244 



Remembering Christ's Words 

odor in her heart, — " Whom not having seen, ye 
love." If we let the word of Christ dwell in 
us richly it will pour sweetness through all our 
life, into our thoughts, feelings, affections and 
emotions, until our whole being is saturated 
with the rich fragrance. There is no other 
secret of true, noble, Christ-like character. 

There is another Bible " Remember." This 
time it is a prayer to God, asking him to re- 
member the word on which he had caused his 
servant to hope. Of course God could never 
fail to remember any word he has spoken on 
which any of his children have trusted. We 
forget too easily the words of the Lord Jesus ; 
but he never forgets a promise he makes. 

Men often make promises on which others 
depend, perhaps staking all their interests and 
their happiness upon the assurance given to 
them, only to find at last that the promise has 
been forgotten. We have all known instances 
in which one person took another's word, be- 
lieved what he said, accepted his assurance, 
giving it implicit confidence — only to learn at 
length that there was nothing substantial in the 
promise. But God's least word is true and 
eternal. "Heaven and earth shall pass away, 
but my words shall not pass away," said Christ. 
When a soul takes any word of Christ and builds 

245 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

a fabric of hope upon it, resting on it, believing 
that it will be fulfilled, sooner might the stars 
fall from heaven than that God should forget or 
fail to fulfill his promise. 

In days of war, while the army rested, a bird 
came and built her nest on the pole of the 
emperor's tent. When it was time for the 
army to move, the mother bird was sitting on 
her eggs. The emperor gave command that 
the royal tent should be left standing, that the 
bird might not be disturbed, till her young were 
hatched and were old enough to fly. The bird 
had trusted him, building her nest, in his tent, 
and he would not disappoint her trust. If we 
put our confidence in any word of God, build- 
ing our hope upon it, he will honor our trust, 
and his word shall be as an eternal rock. It is 
not possible that any hope that rests in a divine 
promise shall ever be pat to confusion or be dis- 
turbed in its confidence. 

" He was better to me than all my hopes, 
He was better than all my fears ; 
He made a bridge of my broken works 

And a rainbow of my tears. 
The billows that guarded my sea-girt path 

But carried my Lord on their crest ; 
When I dwell on the days of my wilderness march, 
I can lean on his love for the rest. 
246 



Remembering Christ's Words 

There is light for me on the trackless wild, 

As the wonders of old I trace, 
When the God of the whole earth went before 

To search me a resting-place. 
Never a watch on the dreariest halt 

But some promise of love endears ; 
I read from the past that my future shall be 

Far better than all my fears." 



247 



CHAPTER XX. 

The Manliness of Jesus. 

One 

Of a commanding stature — beautiful — 
Bearing such countenance as whoso gazed 
Must love, or fear. ... In admonition calm 5 
In tender hours each word like music's soul 
Heard past the sound ! Not ofttimes seen to smile, 
More oft to weep ; yet of a lofty cheer 
Commonly — nay, of playful raillery, 
And swift wit, softened with sweet gravity. 
Straight-standing like a palm tree ; hands and limbs 
So moulded that the noblest copy of them : 
Among the sons of men fairest and first. 

Sir Edwin Arnold. 

The question has been raised whether Chris- 
tianity is not a religion for women rather than 
for men. It has been claimed by some that the 
virtues it inculcates are feminine rather than 
masculine ; that it does not appeal to the manly- 
instincts and sentiments as it does to the wo- 
manly ; that its principles and qualities are not 
those recognized among men as belonging to the 

248 



The Manliness of Jesus 

truest and sturdiest manhood. There is, at least, 
a widespread impression that in actual experience 
Christianity is not making the best possible men. 
That is what the world charges. It says Chris- 
tianity's men are wanting in the stalwart qualities, 
that they are sentimental, weak, and not always 
unalterably true, not always upright, lacking in 
virile force. 

No doubt there are in Jesus all the gentler 
qualities which we think of as belonging to 
woman. But are not these very graces adorn- 
ments also of manly character ? Is it a shame 
for a man to be kindly, tender-hearted, patient, 
sympathetic? Yet while these gentler qualities 
undoubtedly appear in the character of Jesus, no 
less are there in him the elements of strength, 
courage, heroism, justice, unflinching integrity. 
It takes both to make complete manliness. 

F. W. Robertson says that Christ's heart 
had in it the blended qualities of both sexes. 
" There is in him," he says, " the woman 
heart as well as the manly brain." There is 
something very beautiful in this thought, that in 
Jesus whatever is best and truest in both man and 
woman is found. A woman who is seeking for 
whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things 
are lovely in womanhood, the graces of refined 
character — gentleness, sweetness, lovingness — 

249 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

finds all these qualities in Jesus Christ. On the 
other hand, a man who is looking for whatso- 
ever things are just, whatsoever things are honor- 
ble, the elements of noble manhood, will also 
find these qualities in Christ. He was the Son 
of man, — not the son of a man, but the Son of 
man, of humanity. In him all the excellences 
of manhood, as planned by God, found their 
perfection. 

He was born of the seed of David, but he 
was not a Jew. He had no national peculiarity. 
As Robertson says, further, " Once in this 
world's history was born a Man. Once in the 
roll of ages, out of innumerable failures, from 
the stock of human nature one bud developed 
itself into a faultless flower. One perfect speci- 
men of humanity has God exhibited on earth." 
Other men, the best, the truest, the worthiest, 
have in them only a little fragment of a com- 
plete life ; but in Christ is the perfect humanity, 
as if the life-blood of every nation were in his 
veins, and that which is best and truest in every 
man, and that which is tenderest, gentlest and 
purest in every woman were in his character. 

What are the manly qualities ? Thomas 
Hughes says courage is the foundation of all 
true manliness. He means not mere physical 
courage, which one may have and yet be a 

250 



The Manliness of Jesus 

moral coward, but that courage which adheres 
to the right, quietly, firmly, in the face of all 
danger and all antagonism, and goes straight on, 
with unwavering persistence, to its goal. Do 
we find courage in Jesus ? Recall the meaning 
of his mission. He came into the world to 
destroy the works of the devil. He was the 
second Adam, standing for the race. The first 
Adam had failed and fallen. What the conse- 
quences of ruin and sorrow were, we know in 
a little measure. Now Jesus came to fight the 
battle over, to reclaim what had been lost. The 
interests of the whole human race were in his 
hands that day as the heavens opened and the 
Spirit came down upon him. 

Suppose he had failed. But he did not fail. 
He met terrible antagonism. He went from 
his baptism into the wilderness, where he en- 
dured terrific assaults from Satan. Suppose he 
had failed then ; what would have been the 
consequence ? But he met the tempter in fierce 
battle and stood like a rock. So it was through 
all his life. He never wavered in his purpose 
to be true. He had his year of popularity — a 
sorer test of moral courage, ofttimes, than oppo- 
sition. Many men yield to the seductions of 
flattery and favor, and fail to be true, who in 
the storm of enmity are faithful as the compass. 

251 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

But Jesus was not swayed by popularity, was 
never tempted aside from the straight path. 

Then opposition came. The crowds began 
to forsake him. The rulers were against him. 
Enemies gathered in increasing number. The 
end was drawing nigh, and he knew what the 
end would be. The shadow of the cross fell 
upon his soul that day when he was being 
baptized. Every step of his life was toward 
Calvary. Yet as the plots thickened, as the 
shadows deepened, he wavered not. He set his 
face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem though he 
knew what waited there for him. Never before 
nor since has the world seen any other such trial 
of courage as was Christ's. He was standing 
for us men and our salvation and he faltered not 
in the testing. 

We praise the heroism of the soldier who 
stands unflinching at the risk of death, in de- 
fence of his country. We praise the heroes at 
all life's posts of danger, who are faithful to 
their trust. That is well. But the loftiest 
heroism of the ages was that of Jesus. 

Strength is another quality of manliness. It 
is. good to be physically strong. But one may 
be a Hercules in body and a pigmy in moral 
strength. Samson could carry off city gates, 
but could not withstand the temptations of 

35a 



The Manliness of Jesus 

idleness and ease. The strength of many men 
is marred by weakness of some sort. We say, 
" Every man has his weak point." But you 
will search in vain in the story of Jesus for any 
betrayal of weakness in him. We see his ma- 
jestic strength, side by side with his courage, in 
his conflicts with the tempter, in his persistent 
devotion to the divine will, in his blamelessness 
and sinlessness amid all the seductions of life. 
Everywhere we see him, he is kingly. 

Take his self-control as a token of his 
strength. The truly strong man is he who has 
strong capacities, — feelings, passions, powers, — 
and has perfect mastery over them. No matter 
how great a man may be in abilities, what 
tremendous energies he may carry in his life, if 
he is not able to control them, he is pitiably 
weak. The strong man has mighty internal 
forces, a soul of strength, intense passions, feel- 
ings, tempers, all under perfect control. Jesus 
stood this test. In him all human powers 
reached their highest development, and then he 
was perfect master of himself. He was never 
betrayed by excitement, by injustice, by torture, 
to speak a word unadvisedly. He never lost 
his temper. He never grew impatient. He 
never spoke rashly. He never showed envy 
or resentment. He never fretted, never com- 

2 53 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

plained, never was disturbed in the calm of his 
soul by outward circumstances. He stood 
quietly on the boat in the midnight storm. 
He faced the gibbering maniac among the tombs, 
as if he had been an innocent child. He went 
in and out among the hostile Jews as quietly as 
if they had been his friends. 

Think of his self-control in suffering. Never 
have the heavens bent over any other pain so 
deep and terrible as was the pain of Christ in 
the garden and on the cross. We sometimes 
think our sorrows are bitter, but they are noth- 
ing to those which Jesus endured. We have 
hints of the almost unbearable burden of his 
heart in the strong cryings which came from 
Gethsemane, and in the word of forsakenness 
which breaks from his lips on the cross. But 
through all his ineffable sufferings he maintained 
the most perfect calm. He never murmured. 
His peace was never once broken. Call you it 
not manly strength which endured so quietly 
such incomprehensible suffering ? 

Or think of his bearing under wrong and 
enmity. From the beginning of his public 
ministry he met injustice. He was rejected by 
those he sought to help. Toward the close 
these antagonisms became more bitter. But he 
endured them all with heroic patience. He 

254 



The Manliness of Jesus 

never showed the slightest fear. He never 
grew angry. Recall his bearing on his trial, 
his silence before the council, before Pilate, 
before Herod. Think of his silence and pa- 
tient submission, when crowned with thorns, 
mocked, scourged, spit upon. It takes a great 
deal more strength to bear indignities and re- 
proaches quietly and sweetly than it does to 
resent them, to resist them, to lift up voice and 
hand against them, especially if one has power 
to resist. Yet that was the strength Jesus had. 

When about to be crucified, they offered him 
a stupefying potion, to deaden his consciousness 
of pain. It was a kindness offered by Jewish 
women. But he quietly refused it, and accepted 
the full measure of pain which crucifixion in- 
volved, with every sense at its keenest. When 
the nails were driven through his flesh, the only 
cry wrung from him was a prayer for the men 
who were crucifying him. Can any one read 
the story of Jesus and note the strength which 
marks it all, and then say that he was not a 
manly man ? 

Another element of ideal manliness is true love, 
or generosity. We may call it by different names. 
It is large-heartedness. One writer puts it thus: 
" An open, tolerant and kindly temper, that wel- 
comes confidence, that overlooks faults, that 

2 55 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

makes much of any good in other men, that 
easily forgives wrong, — that is a part of any 
ordinary notion of manliness." There are men 
with many strong points who are lacking in 
this quality. They are suspicious, jealous, en- 
vious, secretive, narrow, intolerant. They are 
impatient of other men's prosperity. They are 
ungenerous toward other men's faults. They 
are selfish, exacting, thoughtless, resentful. They 
are brusque, stern, rasping in their talk. These 
are blemishes on their manliness. But those who 
read the story of the life of Jesus find in him 
at every point the finest spirit of generosity. 
He was the truest gentleman that ever lived. 
We have seen his courage and his strength ; no 
less wonderful was the gentle side of his char- 
acter. He was large-hearted, tolerant of other 
men, patient with men's weaknesses, open as day 
in all his acts, gentle and kindly in all his con- 
verse. 

Those nearest to him saw the most in him to 
love. This is not always true of men. Close 
association with them reveals faults, and discloses 
traits which are unlovely. Too close intimacy 
is ofttimes fatal to admiration. Many people 
appear better at a distance than when near. 
But the life of Christ stood the test of close 
familiarity. He was gentle, thoughtful, patient, 

256 



The Manliness of Jesus 

unselfish, full of sympathy. He loved men, 
not because he saw beauty in them, but because 
he wished to do them good. He treated men 
always with a love which was ready to make 
any sacrifice to serve them. 

The world's idea of what makes a man is not 
always infallibly true. Some people call bru- 
tality manly. In some countries " the code of 
honor," as it is most falsely called, prevails as 
a canon of manly behavior. If a man thinks 
he is insulted, he must send a challenge and 
meet his alleged insulter in a duel. If he does 
not, they call him a cringing coward and he 
loses social caste. In some places virtue in a 
man is laughed at. They call purity unmanly. 
But these are low, debased standards. No man 
who looks God in the face and desires to grow 
into divine beauty, will call brutality manly, or 
duelling, or sensuality, or dishonesty, or untruth- 
fulness. The only standard of manly character 
is that set for us in the moral law, a transcript 
of the character of God himself. 

Jesus brought into the world a new standard 
of manhood, a divine standard. Once in the 
ages a manhood grew up which combined in 
itself all the thought of God for man. Jesus 
showed the world what it is to be truly a man. 
He showed us a pattern on, which we should all 
r 257 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

seek to fashion our lives. He was a true man 
from the crown of his head to the soles of his 
feet. His was the truest, noblest, strongest, 
bravest, most unselfish life that ever was lived 
on the earth. If we seek to grow into his like- 
ness, we shall climb nearer to God and into 
the noblest, loftiest reach of humanity. 

In the teachings of Jesus, too, we find the 
precepts which set forth the qualities of true 
manhood. Any man who feels that the gospel 
of Christ is not fitted to make men, brave men, 
strong men, true men, should read over thought- 
fully the Sermon on the Mount. It begins with 
the beatitudes, in which the great Teacher 
sketches in a few bold strokes, ideal manliness. 
" Blessed are the poor in spirit." The world 
would not write that beatitude ; yet who will 
say that true, unconscious humility is not a 
shining quality in manly character ? " Blessed 
are the meek." Again the world would sneer. 
" It is craven and cowardly to bear injuries pa- 
tiently, to forgive wrongs, to repay hatred with 
love." But true meekness is really manly. It 
is easier far to let resentment blaze out, to let 
anger burn, to strike the retaliatory blow. But 
if strength be a quality of manliness, it takes 
strength to be meek. If generosity be a manly 
quality, then meekness is manly. " Blessed are 

258 



The Manliness of Jesus 

the pure in heart." The world does not insist 
on purity as a cardinal element in its manliness. 
But the more shame for the world. Who will 
stand up before, men, in the clear light of day, 
and contend that uncleanness of life is not un- 
manly, that purity of heart is not a radiant 
quality in true manliness ? 

All Christ's teachings, if accepted and obeyed, 
will help toward the truest manliness. There 
is nothing weak or unmanly in any quality of 
character which he commends. There is no 
easy-going virtue such as the world likes. There 
are no elements that are not pure, true and right. 
A false-hearted man will not find his ideal man- 
liness in Christ. The gospel deals mercilessly 
with all shams, all unrealities, all unworthy 
things in life. It denounces in burning words 
all untruth. Jesus had no patience with any- 
thing that was not right and beautiful. 

A story is told of one who, reading thought- 
fully the fifth, sixth and seventh chapters of St. 
Matthew's Gospel, where so many duties that 
are strange to flesh and blood are taught, broke 
out, " Oh, Jesus, this is not thy gospel, or we 
are not Christians." The lives of professing 
Christians seemed to him so far below the 
standard of the Sermon on the Mount that he 
felt these could not be Christ's followers. 

259 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

But Christ is more than a teacher. A teacher 
shows us lofty qualities and attainments and then 
leaves us in hopeless weakness in the dust. But 
Christ is Helper, Friend, Saviour, as well as 
Teacher. He shows us what true manliness is, 
then comes into our life and inspires us to strive 
after the things he commends, and then breathes 
his life into us to help us to be what he teaches 
us to be. Wendell Phillips once wrote in an 
album these words : 

I slept and dreamed that life was beauty ; 
I waked to find that life was duty. 
Was then my dream a shadowy lie ? 
Toil on, sad heart, courageously, 
And thou shalt find thy dream to be 
Noonday and light and life to thee. 

It is not easy to be a man, a true, noble, 
Christlike man. It means continual struggle, 
for enemies of manliness meet us at every step. 
Every inch of the way must be won in battle. 
It means constant restraint and repression ; for 
the old man in us must be subdued and kept 
under by the new man we have resolved to be. 
It means constant, painful discipline, for the 
powers of nature are unruly and hard to tame 
and control. It means unending toil and self- 
denial, for we must climb ever upward, and the 

260 



The Manliness of Jesus 

way is steep and rugged, and self must be tram- 
pled to death under our feet as we rise to higher 
life. It is hard to be a true man, for all the 
odds seem against us. But Christ lives, and he 
is Helper, Friend and Guide to every man who 
will accept him. 



261 



CHAPTER XXI. 

The Living Christ. 

" Our changeful lives are ebbing to an end ; 
Onward to darkness and to death we tend ; 
O Conqueror of the grave, be thou our guide, 
Be thou our light in death's dark eventide; 
Then in our mortal hour will be no gloom, 
No sting in death, no terror in the tomb." 

It always does us good to let the gospel of a 
risen, living Christ afresh into our heart. We 
need it in our life of care and struggle. It is 
an old truth, but it is one we forget, one, at 
least, whose power over us needs constant re- 
newal. 

The women were heart-broken when they 
found not the body of their Friend in the sepul- 
cher. But suppose they had found it there, 
still held in the power of death ! Suppose 
Jesus had never risen ; what would have been 
the consequences ? It would have been as if 
the sun, moon and stars were all blotted from 
the sky. 

If you lay imprisoned in some great fortress 

262 



The Living Christ 

and one who loved you went forth to try to 
rescue you, and fell and died fighting upon the 
walls, you would cherish the memory of your 
friend's valiant effort on your behalf, but you 
would still remain in chains, undelivered. So 
would it have been with those whom Christ 
came to save, if he had perished in death, and 
had not risen. He would have been defeated 
in his great effort, and those for whom he gave 
his life would have been undelivered. Think 
of all the hopes of which the empty grave is 
the symbol — hopes for ourselves and for our 
dead who have fallen asleep in Jesus ; hopes for 
this life and for the life to come, — and remem- 
ber that none of these would have been ours if 
the women had found the body of Jesus in the 
grave that morning. 

The angel said he was risen. Until that 
morning, death had been an unquestioned con- 
queror. Into his dark realms he had been 
gathering his harvests from all the generations 
of men. Every human life — the rich, the poor, 
the great, the small, the strong, the weak — had 
been compelled to yield to death's scepter and 
to pass under his yoke. Nor had any ever come 
again from his dark prison. True, a few per- 
sons in Old Testament days and a few at the 
bidding of our Lord himself, had been returned 

263 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

to life ; but these were not resurrections. They 
only came back for a little while to the old life 
of struggle, suffering, sorrow and pain. Until 
that first Easter morning, no one had ever dis- 
puted death's sway or wrested himself from the 
grasp of the conqueror. 

" Why seek ye the living among the dead ?" 
asked the angel. A marginal reading is, " him 
that liveth," that is, the one alone who really 
lives. He lives in himself, a life underived, 
independent, original. Our lives are only frag- 
ments. We do not have life in ourselves. How 
frail we are, even physically, fainting under 
light burdens, tiring on short journeys ! How 
weak we are in our purposes, in our endeavors, 
and how we falter and fail in our efforts ! How 
helpless we are in the face of opposition, driven 
like swirling autumn leaves before the storms ! 
How little we accomplish ! How small an 
impression we make on the world's life ! But 
in contrast with all this, think of the infinite 
life of Christ, perfect, full, rich, changeless, 
eternal. He is the Life, the living One. We 
live only in him. Our broken fragments of life 
have their hope only in his eternal life. 

The women had brought spices, expecting to 
find his body wrapped in burial garments, lying 
in the rock. " He is not here," said the angel. 

264 



The Living Christ 

Too many Christians look yet for their Chnst 
among the dead. They do not get beyond the 
cross and the grave. They see Christ as the 
Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the 
world. They think of him as accomplishing in 
his passion the whole of his work of human 
redemption. They do not think of a living 
Christ who intercedes for them in heaven and 
who walks with them on earth in loving com- 
panionship. 

The cross must never be forgotten. In a 
certain very real sense Christ saved the world 
by giving himself for it. 

" From thy blessed gloom 
The hope of all the world doth rise and sing j 
By thy sweet pain immortal joy is won $ 
And in the happy shadow of thy tomb 
Is hid the root of Easter's blossoming." 

There could have been no Easter without a 
Good Friday ; no rising again, without the dying 
on the cross. Christ must taste death for every 
man before he could offer deathless life to every 
man. The mark of the cross is on every hope 
of Christian faith. The light that shines in 
soft lustre throughout the world streams from 
Calvary. The sorrow of that day is that which 
is softening all human hearts and making all life 

265 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

gentler and sweeter. The cross was the fullest, 
completest revealing of love that earth has ever 
seen. There the heart of God broke, that its 
streams of life might flow out to give life to the 
world. To leave a dying Christ out of our 
creed is to leave out salvation. The prints of 
the nails are the proof-marks on all doctrine, on 
all theology, on all Christian life. He who dims 
the lustre of the cross of Christ is putting out 
the light of Christian hope by which alone 
souls can be lighted homeward. In the holy 
sacrament, which means so much to Christian 
faith, it is the broken body and the blood of 
Christ that are kept before the eye of believers 
by the sacred memorials. We must never for- 
get that Jesus was dead — dead for us. 

But if our faith stops at the cross, it misses 
the blessing of the fullest revealing of Christ. 
We need not merely a Saviour who nineteen 
hundred years ago went to death to redeem us, 
but one who also is alive to walk by our side in 
loving companionship. We want a Saviour 
who can hear our prayers ; to whose feet we 
can creep in penitence when we have sinned; 
to whom we can call for help when the battle 
is going against us ; a Saviour who is interested 
in all of the affairs of our common life and who 
can assist us in time of need ; who can be our 

266 



The Living Christ 

real Friend, loving us, keeping close beside us 
always, 

" Closer than breathing, nearer than hands and feet." 

We want a Saviour who saves us not alone by 
one great act wrought centuries ago, but by a 
life warm and throbbing with love to-day, walk- 
ing ever by our side. 

It is for love that our hearts hunger. The 
bread that will satisfy us is not the bread merely 
of memorial, the memory of a great devotion 
and sacrifice long, long since, but the bread of 
love, living, present, warm and throbbing. 
Nothing less than a living Christ will do for us. 
That is what the gospel brings to us. It tells 
us of him that liveth. He was dead — the nail- 
prints are in his hands — but he is now alive for- 
evermore. He is risen. He loves us now, to- 
day, always. He is with us. 

While we praise the love that was crucified 
for us, we crave love from a Saviour who lives. 
Memories of affection are not enough to feed a 
hungry soul. Memories of a friend who has 
gone away may be very sweet. They fill our 
life with fragrance. The odors of love departed 
stay in a home, like the perfume of sweet flowers 
when the flowers have been borne away. But 
how unsatisfying are the mere memories of our 

267 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

friend when our heart hungers for love's pres- 
ence and touch and tenderness ! No more will 
the mere memories of the Love that died on 
the cross for us satisfy our cravings for Christ. 
" My soul thirsteth for God, for the living 
God," cries every human heart. It is only as 
we realize the truth of a living Christ that our 
hearts are satisfied. We crave love — a presence, 
a bosom to lean upon, a hand to touch ours, a 
heart whose beatings we can feel, a personal 
friendship that will come into our life with its 
sympathies, its inspirations, its companionship, 
its shelter, its life, its comfort. All this the 
living Christ is to us. 

" For warm, sweet, tender, even yet 
A present help is he 5 
And faith has still its Olivet, 
And love its Galilee." 

The angel's word to the women, with its 
gentle chiding, may be spoken also to Christians 
whose dead have been laid in the grave. " Why 
seek ye him that liveth among the dead ?" We 
think of our friends as in the grave instead of 
in heaven. Sacred, indeed, becomes the little 
spot in " God's acre" where sleeps the form of 
our beloved. All we know of our friends is 
associated with their bodily presence. The 

268 



The Living Christ 

soul looks out through eyes that we can see. 
The love that is so tender reveals itself to us in 
the touch of a real hand, in the tones of a 
human voice and in the glow of a living face. 
Everything about the dear life becomes sacred 
— the attitudes, the step on the floor, the chair, 
the room, the desk, the books, the tools, the 
garments, the places made familiar by associa- 
tion. We cannot see the inner life ; we know 
our friend only in the form in which his spirit 
lives. Hence it is hard for us to think of him 
apart from this well-known form. When death 
has come and the body is only a frail and empty 
tent, out of which our friend has moved, it is 
hard for us to think of him as being elsewhere. 
It is natural that we should prize still the form 
that has grown so dear. 

The women came with their spices to anoint 
the body of Jesus. That was beautiful. It is 
fitting that we plant flowers upon the graves 
where the bodies of our beloved sleep. We 
keep in sacred remembrance everything in which 
they live. We believe, too, in the truth of 
resurrection. Christ has conquered death and 
holds in his hand the keys of the grave. Our 
beloved shall rise again. It is right, therefore, 
that we should honor the body of the friend 
who was so much to us in life. 

269 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

But too many think of their Christian dead 
only as sleeping in the grave. Their eyes look 
down into the darkness of the tomb with sad 
longing, and not upward toward the brightness 
of heaven, with blessed hope. The angel's 
voice is heard to-day, speaking to every sorrow- 
ing heart : " Why seek ye the living among the 
dead ?" Our sainted ones have entered into 
life. 

The truth of the living Christ should lift all 
our days out of dreary commonplace and fill 
them with heavenly brightness. If only we 
realized the power of the endless life, it would 
make all life glorious. The expectation of con- 
tinuance, of a future, affects all our life. If we 
knew there would be no to-morrow, that when 
the sun goes down to-night it would not rise 
again, that with the night's horizon all life 
hereafter would be cut off, the tasks to be taken 
up again no more forever, would we care for the 
things we are doing ? It is the hope of to- 
morrow that gives meaning to the duties and 
tasks of to-day. The things we are doing seem 
worth doing because they are beginnings which 
shall have their fuller meanings, their complete- 
ness, in the days to come. It is hope that gives 
interest and zest to life. 

Richter tells of a beautiful dream. He was 

270 



The Living Christ 

lost in the vast spaces, and he saw sailing toward 
him, amid galaxies of stars, a dark globe in a 
sea of light. He saw on it a little child. At 
last he recognized our earth in the dark globe, 
and in the form of the child, Jesus, who looked 
upon him with a light so bright, gentle and 
loving, that he awoke for joy. No matter how 
dark life may seem to us, while the living Christ 
appears, all is well. His presence illumines 
any gloom. The shining of his face gives 
peace in any storm. 



271 



CHAPTER XXII. 
Friendships in Heaven. 

" It seemeth such a little way to me 

Across to that strange country, the beyond ; 
And yet not strange — for it has grown to be 

The home of those of whom I am so fond j 
They make it seem familiar and most dear, 
As journeying friends bring distant countries near. 

And so to me there is no sting to death, 
And so the grave has lost its victory ; 

It is but crossing, with abated breath 

And white, set face, a little strip of sea, 

To find the loved ones waiting on the shore, 

More beautiful, more precious than before." 

There is a story of a ship whose crew were 
rendered unfit for their duties by coming in 
sight of their home-land. For many years they 
had been cruising in foreign waters. At last 
they came near their native hills. From the 
lookout came the shout " Home !" Instantly 
all the men were wild with excitement. Some 
climbed the masts, some stood on deck and 
strained their eyes to catch a glimpse of dear 
scenes. Every heart beat with mingled hope 

272 



Friendships in Heaven 

and joy. Old memories came thronging back. 
Wives and children and parents and homes were 
there. In their delight the men left their posts 
and the ship was at the mercy of the waves. 
Other sailors had to be gotten from the shore to 
bring the vessel to her landing. 

Somewhat like this would it be with us in 
this world, if we could see heaven and its 
inhabitants, our loved ones among them, and all 
the glories of that blessed home. We would 
be unfit for our duties here. In our excitement 
of joy we should become unfit for our earthly 
tasks. It is better that we should not know all 
about heaven. It is mercy that draws the veil 
before our eyes. 

Yet in our life here the question continually 
arises : " Will it all end when death parts us ?" 
My father and mother lived together more than 
forty years, until they seemed to have only one 
soul, so closely had their lives blended. They 
thought alike, talked alike, almost looked alike. 
My father died first, and after that my mother's 
loneliness was pathetic to behold. She did not 
complain ; she was sweetly submissive to God's 
will. But her thoughts were not on earth. 
She pined for the companionship she had lost. 
" I want to go too," she would sometimes say. 
In a little time she slipped away. Did they 
s 273 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

meet again, those two gentle lovers, who had 
lived together so long that their two souls had 
blended into one ? 

Some Sadducees came to Jesus with a ques- 
tion. A woman had been married seven times : 
which of the seven men would have her as his 
wife after the resurrection ? The Master an- 
swered clearly : " The children of this world 
marry and are given in marriage : but they that 
are accounted worthy to attain to that world and 
the resurrection from the dead, neither marry 
nor are given in marriage. " 

What is the teaching ? Very clearly this — 
that marriage is a relation only for this earthly 
life, and that it will not be re-established in the 
heavenly state. Nor will the marriage ties of 
earth be resumed as such in heaven. The hus- 
band and wife will not meet again as husband 
and wife in the new society of heaven. 

Does this teaching startle some one ? Does 
it mean that two who have lived together on 
earth as husband and wife, in tender and holy 
relations, praying side by side, and walking to- 
gether in the way of God's commandments, 
shall not meet together in heaven and resume 
their close fellowship ? No ; Christ said not 
one word which can be construed to mean this. 
Husband and wife will not resume the marriage 

274 



Friendships in Heaven 

relation there, but if their hearts are knit to- 
gether here in pure and holy love, they will 
meet there in holy love. Certainly those who 
have had so much in common, who have suf- 
fered together, toiled together, sacrificed to- 
gether, sorrowed, hand in hand, if their lives 
are truly knit the one to the other, will take up 
again the old threads of love and go on for- 
ever weaving them into a web of imperishable 
beauty. 

Note a few things about the heavenly life. 
One is, that all the redeemed shall dwell to- 
gether as one family. The true home-life is a 
faint type of heaven's fellowship. Yet the 
purest earthly home is imperfect. Home has 
been called " heaven's fallen sister." The fel- 
lowships of heaven will be immeasurably sweeter 
than those of earth. The family life will be 
perfect. While your associations with your 
earthly kindred will be close and tender in pro- 
portion to the closeness and depth of your 
affection here, the family will embrace a far 
wider circle. You will meet the saints of all 
ages — patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs. 
All who have ever lived a godly life will be 
your brothers and sisters. What a privilege it 
will be to commune with those whose lives so 
brightened the world while they were in it, and 

275 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

whose influence has lived since they have gone, 
a perpetual benediction in this world ! What 
a wonderful company it will be, that complete 
company of the redeemed, gathered from all 
lands and from all ages ! 

Think of all those who have blessed the 
world and helped in its regeneration — the poets 
who have sung the world's pure songs, the 
artists whose pictures have been inspirations to 
so many souls, the missionaries who have car- 
ried Christ's name into the dark places, the 
mothers who have lived to train children for 
God, the great men who have led in the world's 
reformations, the sweet lives which have been 
like gentle, fragrant flowers in this earth's 
wildernesses, the holy ones who have resisted 
temptations, keeping themselves unspotted from 
the world, those who have suffered wrong in 
silence, those who have lived deeply, learning 
life's lessons well and then teaching those lessons 
in books that throb with human sympathy, in 
songs that teach others how to live and how to 
love. How our feelings overmaster us as we 
try to think of that great family of God in 
which we shall find ourselves as members, — 
children of God, children of the resurrection ! 
All the precious things of human life, gathered 
out of all the ages, shall be there. Not a gleam 

276 



Friendships in Heaven 

of true beauty that has ever flashed its beam in 
this world's darkness has been lost. 

Think of living, even here on earth, in a 
company, a community, composed of the one 
thousand best, noblest, most holy and most 
refined people to be gathered from all lands — 
every life a song, every face bearing the beauty 
of Christ, every character rich with the fruits 
of the Spirit — love, joy, peace, long-suffering, 
gentleness, meekness, goodness ; every spirit full 
of the best human life sweetened by heavenly 
grace. It would be supreme happiness to be 
one of such company, comprising the best 
people of this earth. Heaven will be far better 
than this, for it will have in it the best of all 
ages — not as they were here, with earthly limi- 
tations, only fragments of beauty appearing in 
them, marred, too, by sinful things and by 
human frailties — but made perfect in love, in 
holiness, in all Christian life. The " whole 
family" will comprise the redeemed of all ages 
and countries, the spirits of all just men made 
perfect. While we shall lose nothing out of the 
life of friendship we have lived here — keeping 
every friend — we shall gain immeasurably by 
having the good of all ages for our brothers and 
sisters. 

But some one says, " I do not care for this 

277 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

great family, this circle that takes in all the 
world. I want my own. I never cared to have 
many friends. I want my own mother and 
father, my sister, my child, my husband, my 
wife, my little circle — I want these to be my 
friends in heaven." Well, >you will have these, 
if they and you are truly united in Christ in 
this world. The Bible speaks of reunions in 
the other life. When David's child died, the 
father spoke of it as only carried over into 
another home, where it would wait for him. 
" I cannot bring him back to me," he said, " but 
I shall go to him." The separation would be 
only for a time. There would be a reunion. 
The father would have his child again. In the 
multitude of friendships, new and old, in heaven, 
this one — of the king and his little child — would 
be distinct and blessed. 

The same teaching underlies all the revealings 
of the Bible concerning the heavenly life. For 
example, love is the sum of all life. From 
Genesis to Revelation men are taught to love. 
God's own character is painted in one word — 
" God is love." Then we are taught to be 
like God, to seek the restoring of the image of 
God in our souls. All duty is summed up in 
the commandments, in the one word : " Thou 
shalt love." Jesus came to reveal God and he 

278 



Friendships in Heaven 

bade his followers to love. By this mark, he 
said, all men should know that they were his 
disciples, because they were loving. We say 
John reached the highest place among the dis- 
ciples and was dearest to Christ, and nearest, 
and John was the disciple of love. Love blos- 
somed out in his life in its finest beauty. Thus 
all Christian culture is toward love. Home is 
Christ's first school, and home life is simply 
learning to love. Friendship is another school. 
Friendship is discipline. With all its frictions, 
its anxieties, its thought, its toil, its self-denial, 
its training in patience, forbearance and meek- 
ness, it is simply a long lesson in loving. All 
through the New Testament we are taught to 
love. The fruits of the Spirit named by St. 
Paul are merely branches of love, parts of the 
lesson of loving. Love is the fulfilling of the 
law. If we have learned to love truly, purely, 
loving not in the word only but in deed, we 
have met all the requirements of God's com- 
mandments. The whole work of the Bible and 
of the divine Spirit in us is to build up love in 
our character. 

Now, when, in obedience to this holy teach- 
ing, we spend our thirty, fifty, seventy years in 
learning to love, will God destroy all this affec- 
tion, undo all this beautiful work, in death ? Is 

279 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

heaven so different from earth that what grace 
teaches us here is the one essential of a beautiful 
life shall have no place in the new life ? Is love 
only a sentiment of earth, unworthy of heaven ? 
No, no ; love is immortal. St. Paul says, " Love 
never faileth." The love that is wrought into 
our character is imperishable. When we have 
formed a true friendship with another, heart and 
heart knitting together, the bond is indissoluble. 
The external and earthly form of marriage does 
not last over into the heavenly life, but the real 
marriage does last — the love which binds the 
two lives together in one, death cannot touch. 
Kinship of blood will not have any place in 
heaven, but the ties that really bind kindred 
together, brothers and sisters, parents and chil- 
dren, will continue, tender and strong, in the 
new life. 

The friendships there will not be the con- 
tinuation of the mere formal attachments of 
earth, too many of which are empty of love. 
People will not be close friends in heaven be- 
cause they happened to be husband and wife, 
brother and sister, here, but because here they 
have truly loved each other. If a man and a 
woman live in the same house and eat at the 
same table for forty years, and yet do not really 
love each other, their lives never truly blending, 

280 



Friendships in Heaven 

there is no reason for believing that they will 
be special friends in heaven. They never were 
such here. Marriage ties as such will be dis- 
solved at the grave's edge. 

It is very clear, then, that nothing but true 
union of hearts will survive death. Passion 
dies at the grave. All sin goes down into the 
dust and perishes. Selfishness is mortal and un- 
divine. But love that is pure, disinterested, 
unselfish, free from passion and earthliness ; the 
love that springs out of the heart's depths and 
twines in tenderness about another life, that 
shall last forever. Jonathan's and David's 
friendship is going on yet in heaven. So is 
Ruth's and Naomi's. So is Paul's and 
Timothy's. 

If, therefore, we would have our earthly 
friendships last over, we must be truly one in 
our life here. Nothing that is not real can 
enter heaven. All that would separate must be 
put away. The two lives must blend in tender, 
thoughtful, self-forgetful love. The same is 
true of all home-ties and of all friendships. 
The love must be real. Hearts must be knit 
together. 

It is worth while, therefore, to cultivate our 
friendships and to seek to make them abiding 
and true. Perhaps we are too careless in this. 

281 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

We do not prize highly enough the love and 
trust of others. We make too little of hurting 
other hearts. Ofttimes there is a sundering of 
friends here which is sadder than death's sun- 
dering. We listen to the talebearer's venomous 
word and henceforth we grow away from our 
friend. There are friends lost who are living 
yet, whom we see every day, mayhap, but who 
are lost to us. They and we have drifted apart. 
The old tenderness is a buried thing. There 
are husbands and wives, walking together, dwell- 
ing under the same roof, maintaining formal 
relations of intimacy, and yet a thousand miles 
apart. 

This ought not so to be. We ought never 
to drift apart when once our hearts are drawn 
together. Friendship needs cultivation. It re- 
quires great patience, self-denial, thoughtfulness, 
sympathy, affection, to be a friend. But it is 
worth while. We should cherish our friends. 
We should make our friendships like Christ's, 
and he loves unto the uttermost. We should 
build for eternity. We should weave webs of 
friendship here which shall remain beautiful and 
radiant in the other life. 

Does not this hope make it worth while to 
guard our friendships here ? Shall we not learn 
to be better, truer friends, more patient, more 

282 



Friendships in Heaven 

constant, more thoughtful, more faithful ? Shall 
we not seek to have Christ as the bond of union 
in every friendship ? No friendship is sure 
and complete, and no friendship can go on in 
heaven, without this golden thread as one of its 
cords. 



283 



CHAPTER XXIII. 
The Duty of Forgetting. 

They are poor 
Who have lost nothing j they are poorer far 
Who, losing, have forgotten ; they most poor 
Of all who lose and wish they might forget. 
For life is one, and in its warp and woof 
There runs a thread of gold that glitters fair 
And sometimes in the pattern shows most sweet 
Where there are sombre colors. It is true 
That we have wept. But, oh ! this thread of gold, 
We would not have it tarnish ; let us turn 
Oft and look back upon the wondrous web, 
And when it shineth sometimes, we shall know 
That memory is possession. 

Jean Ingelow. 

It is a great thing to learn to live in the 
future. St. Paul put the lesson in very plain 
words when he said : " Forgetting those things 
which are behind, and reaching forth unto those 
things which are before, I press toward the 
mark." To get the full force of these words, 
it must be remembered that they were written 
when St. Paul was an old man. It is no un- 
usual thing for the young to look forward. 

284 



The Duty of Forgetting 

The world is all before them. They have only- 
stepped on the edge of life, and there lies be- 
fore them an unopened, untraversed future, full 
of bright, beautiful visions and brilliant hopes. 
It draws them forward by its thousand golden 
possibilities of attainment, achievement, success. 
It is full of sweet-voiced birds of prophecy. 
Youth has no past, nothing to leave behind; 
all its treasures are on before. It is natural, 
therefore, for the young to look forward and 
press onward. 

But ordinarily it is not so with the old. As 
the years advance, they look back more and 
more. The future' has less and less to draw 
them on. The past is their treasure-house. It 
holds the best things of their life, — their best 
work, their sweetest joys, their tenderest friend- 
ships. They have little more to win. In the 
short path before them there are but few flow- 
ers which they can hope to pluck. There is 
but little room for new achievement. They 
can make no new friendships. It is natural for 
the old to look backward, to live in memory, 
not in hope. 

But here we see an old man who lives wholly 
in the future. He was a prisoner. He was 
broken by much suffering and hardship. It 
certainly was not a bright earthly outlook that 

285 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

he had from his dungeon grating. Would you 
not say, looking at him, that the best, the 
brightest, the grandest part of his career was 
behind him ? What could there be in the 
future for that weary, broken old man ? What 
new lands could he hope to explore ? What 
new achievements could he expect yet to make ? 

Yet here he stands, amid his life's evening 
shadows, and declares that his sublimest work 
lies yet before him, that he has not yet attained 
his life's goal, that his best has not yet been 
reached. " I care nothing for anything in my 
past," he says ; " it does not satisfy me. It is 
not worth counting. Old and broken though 
I be, hemmed in, too, by these oppressive limi- 
tations, these walls, these chains, yet I am not 
at the end of my life ; an unquenchable hope 
lives in my heart; and the star of my life shines 
far onward." 

So we see him there, in the thickening 
shadows of life's evening-time, in the mists of 
gathering twilight, weary, worn, wearing chains, 
but still full of hope, still straining every energy, 
still reaching forward, still forgetting the past, 
still drawn irresistibly on toward some great 
aim, some glorious goal, that lies beyond, un- 
seen by mortal eyes. At length night falls 
upon the vanishing form ; it passes out of our 

286 



The Duty of Forgetting 

sight ; we see the old man going at last to a 
martyr's death. But his eyes are yet fixed on 
something bright and glorious beyond. In the 
last words we catch from his lips, he speaks of 
a crown laid up for him. The last glimpse of 
him we have, with white locks tossed by the 
wind, with eyes fixed steadily and intently upon 
the Beyond, he is still pressing on. 

The secret was this — he had in his eyes a 
distinct and definite future — a future not bounded 
by death's horizon, but running on into eternity. 
Immortality was real to him. No runner in a 
race ever saw goal or garland more vividly than 
this glorious, eagle-eyed man saw the end of 
his course, the goal of his life. Nor was it 
any earthly vision that drew him on ; had it 
been, hope would have been dead in his heart 
in the broken years of his old age. He saw 
life sweeping on through death and beyond it, 
and so he looked forward to the future when he 
would reach his loftiest attainments. Nothing 
good, beautiful, true or real would end for him 
at the grave. 

What were the things which were before 
that old apostle there in his prison ? Nothing 
very bright, the man of the world would say, — 
a few days of chains and dungeon-life, then the 
ax, and then a grave. Cicero said : " An old 

287 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

man has nothing indeed to hope for ; yet he is 
in so much the happier state than a young man, 
since he has already attained what the other 
only hopes for." To this heathen writer there 
was nothing before old age. But before the 
Christian old man there are far more blessed 
things than the best he has left behind him. 

What are some of the things that are before 
us ? The sinless purity into which our souls 
shall rise when they burst away from this which 
we call life ; the endless growth and develop- 
ment of all our powers in the summer of God's 
love ; the wondrous career of sublime occupa- 
tion which shall be ours when we reach our full 
redemption ; the perfect beauty of the divine 
likeness which shall glow on our dull faces in 
the home of peace ; the eternal blessedness of 
that rest which is " deep as summer midnight, 
yet full of life and force as summer sunshine" — 
the rest of God, into which we shall enter. 
The best of life is yet to be. 

It is well worth our while to study the way 
in which St. Paul sought to reach the better 
things which he saw before him. It was by 
forgetting the things that were behind him. 
He was never satisfied with anything here as his 
final attainment. He found on earth no resting- 
place ; his home ever lay onward and upward. 

288 



The Duty of Forgetting 

He lingered in no place, but ever sought a 
country. He cared little what to-day's circum- 
stances were — how hard, how bare, how pain- 
ful, for to-morrow he would be gone. The 
blessed hope which filled his soul made him 
utterly indifferent to the discomforts of the 
present moment. He forgot the things which 
were behind him and reached forth to the things 
which were before. 

Of course, there is a proper use to be made 
of our past. We should remember the lessons 
we have learned from past experience, so as to 
profit by our mistakes, and avoid repeating them. 
The true science of living is not to make no 
mistakes, — which is impossible, — but not to 
repeat the same mistakes a second time. We 
should remember past mercies and blessings. 
If we do, memory will shine down upon us 
like a clear sky, full of stars. Such remember- 
ing of the past will keep the gratitude ever 
fresh in our hearts and the incense of praise 
ever burning on the altar. Such a house of 
memory becomes a refuge to which we may 
flee in trouble. When sorrows gather thickly; 
when trials come on like the waves of the 
sea ; when the sun goes down and every star 
is quenched, and there seems nothing left to 
us in all the present, then the memory of a 
t 289 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

past fall of goodness, a past in which God 
never once failed us, becomes a holy refuge for 
us, a refuge gemmed and lighted by the lamps 
of other and brighter days. Thus there are 
uses of the past which bring blessing. Memory 
has its holy office. 

But there is a sense in which we should 
altogether forget our past. We should forget 
our past attainments. If any man who ever 
lived might have been satisfied with his life, 
St. Paul might have been with his. No other 
man ever got nearer to Christ than he did. No 
other ever more completely put the world 
under his feet. No other ever realized more 
of Christlikeness in character. No other ever 
did a greater work or left a more blessed, fra- 
grant influence. Yet there was no elation, no 
feeling even of satisfaction with himself. His 
attainments all bore to his own eye marks of 
incompleteness. He never looked back to find 
comfort in good things he had done, but cher- 
ished always a sublime discontent with himself, 
and ever looked to what he was going to attain. 
The attained was ever dwarfed and impoverished 
to his eye by the splendors of the unattained. 
It was this divine unrest that made St. Paul a 
growing Christian to the day of his death. 
Nothing is so fatal to all Christian progress as 

290 



The Duty of Forgetting 

the feeling of satisfaction with one's attainments. 
When a man sits down and says, " I am con- 
tented now ; I have reached my goal. I am as 
good as I expect to be in this world. I never 
aspire to anything better than this work I have 
just finished," from that moment he ceases to 
grow. He will strive no more and make no 
new achievement. 

This is true in all life. The want of appetite 
is a mark of physical disease, and hunger is a 
token of health. The cessation of the desire to 
learn is a sign that intellectual growth has ended. 
So in spiritual life, hunger is a mark of health. 
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst 
after righteousness. Blessed are the unsatisfied. 
Blessed are they who long for more and more. 
All through the Bible we find in true believers 
a thirst for God, a deep, passionate yearning for 
closer, fuller, richer, more satisfying communion 
with God himself. The best thing in us never 
is what we are, what we have already reached, 
but our longing for that which is yet higher and 
better. The trouble with too many of us is 
that we are too well satisfied with ourselves. 
We have attained a little measure of peace, 
of holiness, of faith, of joy, of knowledge of 
Christ, and we are not hungering for the larger 
possible attainments. 

291 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

Nothing could be sadder than this state, — no 
more longing, no more growth, no more hunger, 
no more feeding upon Christ, no more aspira- 
tion, no more reaching upward. With all the 
infinite possibilities of spiritual life before us 
we should not settle down on a patch of dusty- 
ground at the mountain's foot in any restful 
content. Where is the immortal in us if we 
can be satisfied with the little we have learned 
of Christ, the little we have attained of likeness 
to him and communion with him ? We should 
pray for spiritual discontent. 

We should also forget past sorrows. Too 
many people live perpetually in the shadows of 
their past griefs and looses. They feel that love 
for the friends who are gone requires them to 
continue in sadness, and therefore they dwell 
year after year amid the memories of their 
griefs. Nothing could be more unwholesome. 
What would be thought of the man who should 
build a house for himself, with black stones, 
paint all the walls and apartments black, hang 
black curtains over the dark windows, put black 
carpet on every floor, festoon the chambers with 
crape, put only sad pictures on the walls, and 
gloomy books on the shelves, and who should 
have no flowers blooming about his doors or 
windows' but flowers for funeral wreaths, no 

292 



The Duty of Forgetting 

trees but weeping-willows and cypresses ? Yet 
there are people who really live in just this way. 
They make a home like this for their soul. 
They forget all the pleasant things, the joys, 
the mercies, the blessings, and remember only 
the sad, painful things. They keep the heart- 
wounds of years unhealed, continually tearing 
them open again. They cherish and nourish 
all their griefs. 

That is not the Christian way to deal with 
sorrow. If we believe that our dead are in 
immortal blessedness with God, why do we so 
linger at the dark grave ? They are not there, 
these departed ones ; then why not turn our 
gaze toward heaven where they wait ? We 
should remember the things which are before 
and forget the things which are behind. Do 
you grieve ? God will never blame you for 
your grief, but he would have you pour it into 
the channels of beautiful, holy living. Let it 
make your heart more sympathetic, your voice 
gentler, your hand softer, and let it send you 
out to be a comforter of others, and never to 
cast the shadows of your grief on life's sunny 
paths. 

An officer leading a charge in battle, came to 
the dead body of his own boy, who had fallen 
in an advance line. His impulse was to stop, 

293 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

to halt his men, to neglect his duty in the battle, 
and to weep over his beloved son. But it was 
the very crisis of the engagement. He was 
leading his men at one of the most important 
points in the field. He dare not pause for tears. 
He flung himself from his horse, knelt an in- 
stant beside the body of his boy, pressed a hot 
kiss upon the white lips, then rose quickly and 
led his men in the assault. 

We must have our sorrows, and sometimes 
they are very sore. Our heart's first impulse, 
in such experience, is to give up our work, to 
lose our place in the moving column of life's 
march, and to linger uncomforted by our griefs. 
But we dare not do this. Duty always presses, 
bidding us forward. Others suffer if we linger. 
The living children need the mother's love and 
care, and she must not stay a minute in neglect 
of them to weep beside her dead. The death 
of a father calls the mother away from tears, 
and ordains her to double duty and responsibility. 
Bereavement is always a call to new and sacred 
service. 

Then God has so ordered, too, that in 
pressing on in duty we shall find the sweetest, 
richest comfort for ourselves. Sitting down to 
brood over our sorrows, the darkness deepens 
about us, and our little strength changes to 

294 



The Duty of Forgetting 

weakness. But if we turn away from the 
gloom, and take up the tasks and duties to 
which God calls us, the light will come again 
and we shall grow strong. 

" When all our hopes are gone, 
For others' sake 

'Tis well our hands must still keep toiling on. 

For strength to bear is found in duty done, 
And he is blest, indeed, who learns to make 
The joy of others cure his own heart-ache." 

We should forget also past mistakes and sins. 
Few problems in life are more important than 
the question — how to deal with our sins. It is 
a wonderful truth that in grace we can leave 
our sins behind us and go on to new life. 
Were there no cross with its atoning sacrifice, 
we could not do this. Our sins would cling to 
us forever and blot our skies with blackness 
that never could be washed white. But the 
blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sins. 
God himself forgets the sins he forgives, re- 
members them no more, forever leaves them 
behind, and he wants us to forget our forgiven 
sins, not to waste one hour in grief over them, 
but to pour the energy of our penitence into new 
life. By the power of the divine grace our sins 
and our falls may even be made to yield bless- 

295 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

ing. Many of the best things in the old man's 
life are the harvest of his penitences and re- 
pentings. Through the grace of Christ we 
may so deal with our sins as to extract blessing 
from their shame, sweetness from their bitter- 
ness, beauty from their loathsomeness. Our 
very falls may become new births to our souls, 
and we may leave them behind us, using them 
as stepping-stones to new and holier life. 

" Noble souls, through dust and heat, 
Rise from disaster and defeat 

The stronger ; 
And conscious still of the divine 
Within them, lie on earth supine 
No longer." 

Thus true life looks ever forward. We may 
never rest. Our goal is before us. We must 
live loose to this world, never anchoring our 
barques for a long stay. Our best attainments 
must be but steps to higher attainments. To- 
day's achievements must but inspire us for 
nobler achievements to-morrow. " Forward 
and not back" is the true motto for a Christian 
life. Even sorrows must not detain us, and we 
must take little time for farewells and for tears, 
so urgent is the life of duty and obedience 
which calls us on, and so glorious are the bless- 

296 



The Duty of Forgetting 

ings that wait before us. Even our sins must 
not cause us to falter, but we must hasten away 
from them, leaving the vales of defeat, to climb 
to the holy heights of victory. The best is 
ever onward and forward. We are not going 
toward death, but toward life. What we call 
dying is but trampling to fragments the hinder- 
ing walls of mortality and pressing through into 
the full, unrestrained, boundless blessedness of 
life*. 

Such a life as this is possible only in Christ. 
If we are not Christians, we cannot forget the 
things that are behind — for we have nothing 
before us that is beautiful and worthy. We 
cannot press forward to the things that are be- 
fore, — what is there before us if we have not 
Christ, if our sins are not forgiven, if we have 
no home and treasure in heaven ? How can 
we leave sorrow behind if no comforter comes 
with the blessed revealing of immortality ? The 
realities of life are the unseen things which are 
ours in Christ. Heaven is always before us 
and heaven holds life's best joys, attainments 
and treasures. 



297 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

Night and Jesus Absent. 

Be near me when all else from me is drifting — 

Earth, sky, home's picture, days of shade and shine, 

And kindly faces to my own uplifting 

The love that answers mine. 

Whittier. 

Sometimes a whole picture lies in a sentence 
or part of a sentence. Thus St. John describes 
a scene on the Sea of Galilee : " It was now 
dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them." 
The disciples had been sent out on the sea 
alone. Evening was drawing on. Moreover, 
a storm was gathering, adding to their anxieties 
and fears. Their distress was very great. 

The experience is repeated continually in the 
life of Christ's friends. They are out upon the 
sea. Darkness is coming on. Storms are rising. 
Yet they seem to be left alone. Jesus has not 
come to them. Why does he leave us thus to 
enter the night without him ? If we read this 
gospel incident through to the close and use it 
as a parable, it will have rich instruction for us. 

It was not the disciples' own doing, this 

298 



Night and Jesus Absent 

being out on the sea that night ; the Master had 
sent them out. This should have been a com- 
fort to them, when the darkness came on and 
the waves began to roll. No disobedience of 
their own had brought them into their present 
circumstances of danger. They were in the 
wav of obedience. 

The path of duty does not always lie in the 
sunshine ; sometimes it passes into the dark- 
ness. The voyage of life is not always over 
calm seas, with gentle, favoring breezes ; some- 
times the winds are contrary, and we must 
move in the teeth of the tempest. Darkness 
and tempest are not always intimations that we 
are in the wrong way. We may be in the path 
of duty, of obedience, and yet find gloom and 
contrary winds. In these cases the conscious- 
ness that we are doing the Master's will ought 
to be to us a strength and a comfort. We need 
never be afraid of the night or of the storm 
into which Christ sends us. If we go into 
danger by our own willfulness or reckless dis- 
obedience, it is different, for then we go with- 
out the presence and help of Christ. But when 
Christ has bidden us take the course in which 
we meet night and storm, we may keep on our 
way, sure of emerging beyond the gloom and 
the wild waves, into morning and calm. 

299 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

Another comfort in the darkness of that 
night was that, though Jesus had not yet come 
to his disciples in their danger, he was not 
forgetful of them. One of the Gospels tells us 
that from his place in the mountain he saw the 
disciples distressed in rowing. He was caring 
for them as really as if he had been with them. 
We may be sure that this picture is realized in 
the life of every Christian who seems to be 
left alone in any gathering night. Jesus is still 
on his mountain of intercession. Though we 
may not see him, he sees us. He looks upon 
us in love. He is aware of all our struggles 
and all our fears. The confidence that we are 
ever under the eye of the watching, loving 
Christ, ought to give us strong comfort. 

In one of the old English prisons there was an 
underground dungeon which was used as a place 
of punishment for those who fell under disfavor. 
Among the prisoners, at one time, there was a 
man of refinement with exceedingly nervous 
temperament, to whom the horror of this dun- 
geon was a haunting terror. Then one day he 
offended in some way and was sentenced to four 
and twenty hours in this cell. He was led to 
the place, the door was opened and he passed 
down the stairs into the dark depths. The 
shutting of the door sent its echoes through the 

300 



Night and Jesus Absent 

gloomy dungeon. Then all was still — a stillness 
that was terrible in its oppressiveness. Nervous 
and full of fear, the poor man sank to the floor. 
His brain throbbed as with fever, and mocking 
voices seemed to sound on all sides. He felt 
that the terror would drive him mad. 

Suddenly he heard footsteps overhead, and 
then a voice gently calling his name. Never 
was any music so sweet. " God bless you !" 
he gasped. " Are you there ?" " Yes," an- 
swered the prison chaplain, " and I am not 
going to leave this place until you come out." 
" God bless you !" cried the prisoner. " Why, 
I do not mind it at all, now, with you there." 
The terror was all gone. The darkness was 
powerless to harm him while his friend was so 
near, close above him, though unseen. 

So in all the hours of our darkness, in the 
blackest night, in the deepest sorrow, in the 
sorest perplexity, when we think we are alone, 
while we long for Christ's presence and wonder 
why he comes not, he is really near us, watch- 
ing us, caring for us, though unseen by us. 
There is no darkness where a friend of Christ 
gropes, that is not swept by the eye of divine 
love. There is no child of God in the midst 
of any wild storm, who is not watched over 
and sheltered by the divine care. 

301 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

There is another comfort. There was a time 
of waiting, but at last Jesus came — came walking 
on the tossing waves, as if they had been a 
smooth marble floor. It was well-nigh morning 
when he came — the fourth watch of the night. 
He seems to have waited till the last moment. 
" Man's extremity is God's opportunity." But 
he came in good time to deliver his friends. 
When he came he soon brought peace. At his 
word the terror of the disciples vanished. The 
wind also ceased and the sea became calm. 

Our human hearts crave revealings of Christ. 
We are not fully satisfied with knowing that he 
is looking down upon us from above the stars ; 
we want to hear his voice. It is a sore trial to 
get no answer to our continued calling. The 
silence of Christ to us when we pray is very 
oppressive. No wonder the old psalm-writer 
pleads : " Be not thou silent to me : lest, if 
thou be silent to me, I become like them that 
go down into the pit." We crave answer when 
we pray. We cry : 

" Speak, speak, oh, my Saviour, to me ! 

Thy silence affrights me, 

Thy distance benights me 

Through which I hear not nor see ; 

No voice and no smile that invites me — 
In vain I am looking for thee. 
302 



Night and Jesus Absent 

Oh, speak to me through this murk shade, 

My vision forbidden, 

My conscience sore chidden, 
My soul, not my senses, afraid ; 

From the light of thy countenance hidden, 
Where my feet have heedlessly strayed. 

For if thou keep silent to me 

Rather my choice is 

To hearken no voices, 
And song's sweet enchantment to flee j 

That cloys me which elsewhere rejoices, 
Afar from my hearing of thee. 

Speak, Lord, then, if but to reveal 

The wilful demerit 

Searing my spirit — 
And even thy chiding shall steal 

Like balm to my heart as I hear it, 
And so wound it only to heal. 

For when thou hast spoken to me, 

Consciously nearer — 

I shall see clearer 
Thy face but for thinking I see ; 

And thought of thee then growing dearer — 
Gloom with the silence shall flee." 

When, at length, after long waiting, the voice 
of Christ falls upon our ears in our darkness and 
sorrow, the gloom does indeed flee. Even the 
voice of a human loved one speaking in the dark- 

303 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

ness calms the tempest in our breast and fills 
the darkness as with gentle light. We feel 
afraid no longer ; the voice reveals a presence 
and we are comforted. But the revealing of 
Christ in our time of dread means infinitely more 
of peace and comfort. When he comes, fear 
flees and peace fills the lonely, trembling heart. 
And he will surely come. His delays are not 
desertions. At the right moment, when he has 
taught us all the lessons we need to learn by his 
absence and his silence to us, he will return, 
driving away the darkness and quieting the 
storms by his presence and his words of love. 

This picture — entering the night and the 
storm, with Jesus absent — has another suggestion 
for us. These disciples who put out to sea, as 
the darkness came on, with the Master not yet 
come to them, represent all who enter life with- 
out Christ. Life seems bright and sunny to 
youth with its inexperience. It has no nights 
and no storms. Bat we do not pass far into 
the years that bring their duty, responsibility, 
and care, until we come to experiences of strug- 
gle and toil. Life soon grows serious. In the 
Revelation where the blessings of the kingdom 
of heaven are described, we learn that all noble 
attainments in spiritual character and all life's 
rewards and prizes lie beyond lines of battle. 

3°4 



Night and Jesus Absent 

It is only to " him who overcometh" that these 
blessings are promised. The youth does not 
advance far till he learns that life is not play, 
but most earnest business. Nothing can be ac- 
complished without effort. Toil is the price 
of success. To loiter is to lose all. To falter 
is to fail. At every point antagonisms meet him 
and he must fight for his very life. He soon 
learns, too, that if he has not the Lord Jesus 
Christ for his friend and helper, he can never 
make his way to the worthy things which lie on 
the hill-tops beyond the vales of struggle. 

No doubt many people do live all their life 
without Christ. They do not confess their 
need of him. They shut him out of their 
experiences. They struggle alone. They meet 
their responsibilities unaided by divine grace. 
No doubt, too, they may seem to succeed. 
They prosper in the world. But they live only 
an earthly life. They ignore their own higher 
nature. They ignore God and heaven and 
immortality. They gain the world and lose 
themselves. No life is worthy of an immortal 
being which does not gain the higher things of 
the soul. A picture with only earth, and no 
sky, is tame and lacks truest beauty. A life 
without sky and stars and heaven is unworthy 
the name of life. Besides, its seeming success 
u 305 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

is really terrible disaster — the loss of eternity. 
No one can meet life without Christ. 

There is the experience of temptation. We 
do not live many years before we come to it. 
No one can escape it. Even the sinless Jesus 
had to meet it. Temptation is ofttimes a black 
night for the soul that enters into it. The 
scene of the disciples struggling in the dark- 
ness with contrary winds, distressed in rowing, 
scarcely able to guide their boat through the 
tempest, is not too stern a picture of the experi- 
ence of many a soul in the struggles of tempta- 
tion without Christ. We are such fools in our 
self-confidence ! " Others have fallen — yes, but 
we shall not fall. Others have perished in the 
darkness — yes, but we shall not perish. Others 
have had to cry out for help when they had 
fallen, lying in "their defeat until some one came 
to lift them up — yes, but we shall not fall; we 
shall not be defeated." So we talk, as we fool- 
ishly pass into the darkness and the storm with- 
out Christ. 

But we should not dare to pass into the dark 
night and out upon the wild sea of temptation 
without Christ. Human help is something. 
We are to go to our brothers who have fallen, 
to lift them up, and our hands are to be as 
Christ's hands for this blessed ministrv. But 

306 



Night and Jesus Absent 

if human hands were the only ones, none could 
ever be kept from falling ; nor could any ever 
be lifted up and helped on to the end. We 
must have Christ in temptation, or we shall 
perish. 

There is also the experience of sorrow 
which every life must meet. In sunny youth 
sorrow seems very far off. The skies are blue. 
Flowers spring up along the path. Soft breezes 
fan the cheeks. Joy is everywhere. Hope 
shines in all the future. But there comes a 
time when it grows dark. Sorrow covers the 
heavens with blackness. If Christ be not pres- 
ent with his love and light and comfort, as the 
soul passes into sorrow's night, it will be very 
dark indeed. 

Then there is the darkness of death. We 
may miss many things in this world. Our path 
may lie all the way in sunshine. There are 
some lives which seem to be spared great con- 
flicts and struggles, which are called to pass 
through no bitter griefs. But not one of us can 
hope to miss dying. We must come down to 
the edge of the valley of death. We must 
enter into the darkness. What will any of us 
do then without Christ ? The disciples trem- 
bled and were afraid when night came on, and 
when they had to put out upon the sea in the 

307 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

darkness, without Jesus. But that sea was only 
a little lake, a few miles over ; and they were 
familiar with every part of it, for they had spent 
their life about it and upon it. The darkness, 
too, would be but for a few hours, with morning 
following. Far more momentous an experience 
is it to go out upon the sea of death. We have 
never passed this way heretofore, and all is 
strange and unfamiliar. Where the shores 
stretch we cannot tell. What is in its deep, 
black night, no imagination can paint. But for 
the Christian, death has no terrors. Christ has 
made the way bright with peace. He walks 
with his own and they sing : 

" Yea, e'en when I walk in the valley of the shadow of 
death, 
No ill do I fear, for thou art beside me, — 
Thy sceptre and staff are my comfort." 

But it is a fearful thing to die without Christ. 
Saddest of all pictures is that of those whom 
these words describe as entering the night of 
death : " It was now dark, and Jesus had not 
come to them." 

This lifting of the veil at a few points shows 
how real is the soul's need of Christ, and how 
dreary, sad and perilous it is to pass into these 
experiences without Christ. If any one thinks 

308 



Night and Jesus Absent 

that life has been depicted here in too sombre 
and serious colors, it may be said that without 
Christ life is a most grave and serious matter. 
How can a man live — entering life's battles, 
accepting its responsibilities, assuming its duties, 
passing into its sorrows, or think of taking its 
last walk into the shadows, without Christ? 

A thoughtful man gave three reasons why he 
had not become an infidel after reading all the 
books written against Christianity. " First, I 
am a man. I am going somewhere. To-night 
I am a day nearer the grave than I was last 
night. I have read all that the skeptics can tell 
me. They shed not one solitary ray of hope 
or light upon the darkness. They shall not 
take away the guide and leave me stone-blind. 
Second, I had a mother. I saw her go down 
into the dark valley where I am going, and she 
leaned on an unseen arm as calmly as a child 
goes to sleep on its mother's breast. I know 
that was a reality, not a dream. Third, I have 
three motherless daughters. They have no 
protection but myself. I would rather see them 
dead than leave them in this sinful world, if you 
blot out from it all the teachings of the gospel." 



3°9 



CHAPTER XXV. 

Numbering Our Days. 

" They are slipping away — these sweet, swift years, 
Like a leaf on the current cast, 
With never a break in the rapid flow ; 
We watch them as one by one they go 
Into the beautiful past. 

One after another we see them pass 

Down the dim-lighted stair ; 
We hear the sound of their steady tread 
In the steps of the centuries long since dead, 

As beautiful and as fair." 

What is it to number our days ? One way- 
is to keep careful record of them. That is a 
mathematical numbering. We say we are so 
many years old. We note our birthdays. But 
that is not the numbering which is meant in the 
old time Bible prayer : " Teach us to number 
our days." Mere adding of days is not living. 
There are those whose years leave no blessing 
in the world, and who gather no growth of 
good or wisdom into their own hearts as they 
pass through life. There are people who live 

310 



Numbering Our Days 

to be seventy years, eighty years, old, who 
might as well never have been born. 

" It is not growing like a tree, 
In bulk, doth make a man better be; 
Or standing like an oak, three hundred year, 
To fall a log at last — dry, bald and sere." 

Another way of numbering our days is illus- 
trated by the story of a prisoner. When he 
first entered his cell, he made marks on the wall 
of all the davs of the sentence he was to serve. 
Then at the close of each day he would rub 
off one mark. He had one day more of prison 
life put in, and there was one day less for him 
to remain. This process he continued till he 
had completed the time of his incarceration. 
Each one of us every evening has one day more 
expunged from his appointed time on earth. 
One more day is gone, with its opportunities, 
its privileges, its duties, its responsibilities — 
gone beyond recall. We can never get it back 
to change anything ; to undo any wrong done 
in it ; to do any omitted duties that belonged 
to it ; to take any gift or blessing that was 
offered and rejected during the bright hours; to 
seize any opportunity that came and passed. 

There is something startling in this thought 
of the irrevocableness of time past. At the 

3n 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

close of a day one line more is blotted from the 
column and gone forever from us. If we have 
lived the day well, it is all right. Days that go 
from us filled with true, sweet, noble living, 
the little page written all over with pure, white 
thoughts and records of gentle deeds, need never 
be mourned over. But it is a sad thing to have 
to rub out the lines of days of idleness, of un- 
cleanness, of selfishness, of lost opportunities, 
of unaccepted privileges and blessings. Such 
numbering of days is not the numbering Moses 
had in mind. Such days are lost days. 

" Who's seen my day ? 
'Tis gone away, 
Nor left a trace 
In any place. 
If I could only find 
Its foot-fall in some mind, 
Some spirit-waters stirred 
By wand of deed or word, 
I should not stand at shadowy eve 
And for my day so grieve and grieve.'' 

The true way of numbering our days is sug- 
gested in the prayer in the old psalm when we 
read it in full : " So teach us to number our 
days that we may get us an heart of wisdom." 
We are so to live our days as they pass that we 
shall get new wisdom from them. Life's lessons 

312 



Numbering Our Days 

cannot all be learned from books. The teachings 
may be set down in books, but it is only in 
actual living that we can learn them. For ex- 
ample, patience. A book or a teacher may tell 
us very clearly what patience is, what it does, 
how it bears itself amid life's frictions ; but 
learning all this will not make us patient. We 
must get our patience in the school of life. 

We talk of learning from the experience of 
other people. There are things we can get in 
this way. Probably we ought to learn more 
than most of us do from those who have gone 
over the way before us. But the truth is we 
have to go over the path ourselves to get its 
lessons. We have to learn by doing, by failing, 
by stumbling, by suffering, by making our own 
mistakes, by enduring the results and conse- 
quences of our own self-conceit and folly. 

Out of the experience of our days we ought 
to get a heart of wisdom. Some people never 
do. Said the wise man, " Though thou shouldst 
bray a fool in a mortar, with a pestle among 
bruised corn, yet will not his foolishness depart 
from him." There are plenty of such fools all 
the time. They make the same mistake over 
and over, suffering always from it in the same 
way, but never learning wisdom from the ex- 
perience. This is most unprofitable living. 

3 J 3 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

We ought to get a heart of wisdom from the 
passing days. 

We come to a birthday or a new year. We 
cannot change anything that has been done in 
our year. It is idle even to waste a moment in 
weeping over the mistakes we have made, the 
follies we have committed. Tears will blot 
out nothing that life has written on its folded 
pages. Grieving will not correct mistakes. 
But we ought to learn wisdom from the year's 
experiences. " To err is human," but we ought 
not to repeat our errings. We ought not to 
need to be brayed twice in the same mortar. 
We ought not to burn our fingers twice in the 
same fire. We ought not to be deceived twice 
by the same temptation. 

We ought to begin our new year with a 
wiser heart. Life should be cumulative. Each 
year should be lived on a higher plane than the 
last one, with a truer view of life's object, 
with increased energy. The hurts made this 
year by the things that have happened to us 
should become new adornments and enrichments 
in our character. If we are living right, obedi- 
ently, and near the heart of Christ, all things 
will work together for good to us. It is the part 
of wisdom to take out of all things the good 
which the love of God would give to us. 

3H 



Numbering Our Days 

No matter, then, what the experience of any- 
closing year has been to us, it is our privilege 
and the part of wisdom in us to carry from it 
some good. It is sad indeed if we have lived 
through three hundred and sixty-five days, with 
their burdens, duties, cares, sorrows, gains, 
losses, joys, pains, mistakes, successes, failures, 
loves, and are no wiser, no better, stronger, 
more Christlike, than we were when we crossed 
the threshold of the year. He who has lived 
well carries the marks of the year's experiences 
in his character in larger, truer, nobler, stronger 
manhood. 

Some people talk sadly of the closing of a year. 
They think of it as a friend with whom they 
have walked in close companionship, from whom 
they must now separate themselves. We talk of 
the dying of the year when we approach its close, 
but better is the thought that it is a living year 
from which we are parting. No year in which 
we have lived and wrought ever can be a dead 
year. One writes : 

Why cry so many voices, choked with tears, 
" The year is dead ?" It rather seems to me 
Full of such rich and boundless life to be, 
It is a presage of the eternal years. 
Must it not live in us while we, too, live ? 
Part of ourselves are now the joys it brought ; 

3*5 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

Part of ourselves is, too, the good it wrought 
In days of darkness. Years to come may give 
Less conflict, less pain, less doubt, dismay, — 
A larger share of brightness than this last j 
But victory won in darkness that is past 
Is a possession that will far outweigh 
All that we have lost. So let us rather cry, 
" This year of grace still lives ; it cannot die.*' 

If we have lived truly, earnestly, wisely, any 
year we have passed through is to us indeed a 
living year. It lives in us in its lessons, its 
disillusions, its impressions, its influences, its 
new strength gained in struggle, its victories, 
its testings, its cleansings, its new revealings of 
God, its friendships and fellowships. It lives 
in us, too, in its losses which have been turned 
to gains, its sorrows which have been illumined 
by divine comfort. Then the year lives, too, 
if we have been faithful in love's duty, in the 
things we have done, in the words we have 
spoken, the influences of good we have given 
out. We have dropped seeds and planted trees 
which shall be growing and bearing fruit and 
feeding the world's hunger, long years hence. 
If we have numbered our days aright, an old 
year is indeed a living year, crowded with life 
— a year which shall tell on all our future years 
and which shall make the world's life better, 
sweeter, richer, nobler, 

316 



Numbering Our Days 

The lesson may be broken up a little. We 
so number our days when we give to each one 
as it passes its own measure of faithfulness. 
Days come to us one by one. God breaks up 
his great years into little sections for us that we 
may be able to get along with our work, our 
burdens and our struggles. He who has learned 
this secret has gotten part at least of this lesson 
into his heart. Take the single days as they 
come to you. Look not beyond the horizon 
which night stretches so short a way before you. 
Take the one little day. Do all its duties faith- 
fully. Accept its blessings. Seize its oppor- 
tunities. Endure its trials. Meet its tempta- 
tions victoriously. Bear its burdens. Open 
your heart to its love. Miss not its privileges. 
Do all the kindness you can. Make it a beau- 
tiful day. 

Any one can live one single day sweetly, 
victoriously. Make to-day beautiful. Then do 
the same with to-morrow, and with the next 
day, and so on to the end of your life. Thus 
you will number your days in a way that will 
make them bright with divine radiancy. Thus 
you will write on each day's page a record of 
which you will not be ashamed when it is spread 
before you on the judgment-day. 

We can never number our days rightly if we do 

3*7 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

not have God in them. We ask God to teacn 
us to number our days. One of the first lessons 
of true wisdom we have to learn is that we 
cannot leave God out of our life. Human 
guidance has its place. It is one of Christ's 
ways of guiding us. We all feel stronger for 
tried human companionship, for wise human 
counsel ; but the human is not enough. Human 
wisdom is fallible ; human strength is often 
weakness. We must have Christ as guide and 
companion. Our morning prayer each day 
should be, " Lord, teach thou me to number 
my days." 

We need God's forgiveness on the best of 
our days. Can we hold up our hands before 
God, at the close of any day and say : " I am 
free from sin. I have lived this day perfectly. 
I have not blotted any of its white moments. 
I have spoken only good words. I have done 
only right things. I have no sins to confess" ? 
We have failed in our endeavors. We have 
fallen below even our own ideals. We have 
done things we ought not to have done. We 
have left undone things we ought to have done. 
We have failed in our duties to each other — 
love's duties. We have not been always chari- 
table toward the faults and infirmities of others. 
We have not been always kind, gentle and for- 

318 



Numbering Our Days 

giving. We have not been always the good 
Samaritan to the wounded ones we have found 
in life's tragic way. Then toward God we 
have been remiss. We have done at best only 
fragments of our duty. There is not one day 
when our evening prayer could be closed with- 
out the confession of sin and the pleading for 
mercy. Four days before her death, Helen 
Hunt Jackson wrote this prayer : 

Father, I scarcely dare to pray, 

So clear I see, now it is done, 
That I have wasted half my day, 

And left my work but just begun 3 
So clear I see that things I thought 

Were right or harmless, were a sin; 
So clear I see that I have sought, 

Unconscious, selfish aims to win j 
So clear I see that I have hurt 

The souls I might have helped to save ; 
That I have slothful been — inert, 

Deaf to the call thy leaders gave. 

We need God, too, in getting a heart of 
wisdom from our experiences. As soon as we 
find a fault in our disposition or character we 
should set to work to have it cured. As soon 
as we see a duty which we ought to do, but 
which thus far we have failed to do, we should 
immediately begin doing it. We should be 
ever reaching after the finest things in life and 

319 



1 



Life's Byways and Waysides 

character — whatsoever things are true, whatso- 
ever things are lovely. When we make a mis- 
take, it is idle to spend time weeping over it — 
tears wash out no blot, make no amends — rather 
we should put all the energy of our regret into 
better living, guarding well lest we fall into the 
same error again to-morrow and to-morrow and 
to-morrow, until our feet have worn a path for 
themselves in the wrong way. The wisdom 
we expect to get from experience is wisdom for 
life, that we may daily grow in beauty of soul, 
in strength of character and in helpfulness to 
our fellow-men. In all this we need God. As 
the sweetest flower needs the sunshine and the 
rain or dew from heaven, so do our lives need 
heaven's benediction to give them true loveliness. 

" The spider walks with wit and will, 

She frames her wheel and she is sped ; 
But 'tis the dew's gift, not her skill, 

That hangs with diamonds every thread. 

With pains and patience we no less 

Shape out our lives, but yet allow 
That all our brightest happiness 

Is sent from heaven, we know not how." 



320 






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